A Hot Time in the Garden

“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

-- William Shakespeare

I went looking for a summer quote to start this blog post, and this one of the Bard's was the closest to what I feel about summer. It is all too short ... but not short enough.

Spider mites (Margo D. Beller)

Most people love summer for the heat, being out of school, time down the shore. Not me. The overabundance of heat, humidity and insects tends to keep me indoors if I can help it. 

I don't need to look for birds now. The birds can get along without me quite well, and there are plenty I can hear in the early morning cool from my porch - robins, catbirds, cardinals, mockingbird, the occasional house finch, flicker or goldfinch. (The house wrens are silent, however, making frequent trips to the box to feed their young.)

Overgrown apple tree
(Margo D. Beller)

But with summer comes too many garden chores, and if I don't work in the garden on a regular basis - heat or no - I have big problems.

The flowers are lovely, yes, but the weeds are also growing - everywhere, including behind the deer netting. Last year, when I was sick, I could do nothing in the garden. As a result, there were so many weeds everywhere, including growing between the paving stones on the front walkway so you couldn't see the bricks. This year I've been out frequently with a spray bottle of vinegar and salt to keep that from happening again.

Overgrown cedar (Margo D. Beller)

There are, as usual, too many insects. They feed the birds but they also attack garden plants and sometimes me. The red spider mites showed up earlier than usual to attack the yellow daisies. For these pests I use a spray bottle of water and, wearing rubber gloves, carefully run my fingers up the stem and crush as many of these pests as I can (and then rinse the red residue off the gloves).

In some areas of the yard, my pulling weeds angers the resident no-see-ums, which bite me so fiercely the affected areas feel like they are on fire. This is despite my wearing coverings from head to toe and going out early to work when it is cooler and shady.

And don't get me started on mosquitoes.

Overgrown pear tree (Margo D. Beller)

The ground ivy grows everywhere, no matter how much I pull up. Its more noxious cousin, poison ivy, has been coming up in nearly inaccessible places, such as under the hedge. I can yank up handfuls of ground ivy but for poison ivy I need to cover each hand with a plastic bag to pull the stuff out without giving myself a rash, and even then I make sure to wash my hands and lower arms with cold water and soap as soon as possible.

The blue spruce is tall and stately, but it is in an area of the yard where it does not affect the house. The dogwood that was planted nearby at the same time as the spruce has reached its full height, but it is a runt compared with the tall oak trees overhead. But other trees should've been pruned years ago. The arborvitae (white cedar) planted near the front door is now so tall I could reach it from my second-floor office window. The pear tree grew so tall its fruit-laden upper branches were resting on the porch roof. The apple tree is in dire need of a haircut, too.

Ground ivy on the wrong side of the fence
(Margo D. Beller)

Yesterday, an unusually cool and windy day, I took my 14-foot extension lopper and cut down as many of the pear branches as I could reach. But the other pear branches plus those of the other too-tall trees will need professional help this year. As will the house, which needs washing and gutter clearing. And there's that deer fencing I must re-do when it gets cooler so I can get at the weeds, put down mulch and dig a new border to minimize the mess next year (I hope).

Summer can't end soon enough.

 

At War With Weeds

As this coronavirus pandemic continues there have been many articles published about the medical, mental and culinary benefits of gardening.

The unidentified weed that is everywhere in
my garden in 2020. (Margo D. Beller)

No one talks about weeding.

At this time of year, after several heatwaves, there is usually a short spate of time when it is suddenly cooler and less humid, a time the media weathercasters invariably call "a taste of Fall." This is when I usually walk out my front door and around my property and see where the weeds are running rampant.

I write a lot about weeds, and that is because it is frustrating to deal with them year after year. It is a Sisyphusian battle because the types of weeds growing where I don't want them will continue to come back unless I do something drastic, and even then that will be only a short-term fix. I have one area where locust trees - actual trees - are growing from a long underground root (the parent plant is at the curb) and popping up under my andromeda shrubs surrounded by Sensitive ferns (that is their name, not their demeanor). I have neither the time, energy nor back strength to disrupt this area with shovel or backhoe so I must monitor it carefully and regularly use the lopper to cut the saplings to the ground and at least slow the growth.

This grassy weed gives me the satisfaction of
clearing a large area quickly, at least until it
grows back. (Margo D. Beller)

This year there have been other weeds that started popping up everywhere in profusion, perhaps because of the cooler, wetter spring. They are in all my garden plots, taking advantage of the deer netting, requiring me to make the effort to get behind or under to get at them. Lately, they've started looking like small trees. Worse, I can't even identify them. But to paraphrase what Justice Potter Stewart once said about obscenity, I know them when I see them and I've seen them off the paths I hike. If left unchecked they WILL become trees.

And then there is my balky back, which seizes up on me at this time of year because of the effort of battling weeds. 

Every year, I sit on my low bench, lean forward and pull. After a while I realize I can't sit up. This is when I usually stop and when I painfully rise this is when the spasms begin. A few weeks ago, when there was still light at 5 a.m., I worked in the area at the side of the house (where the andromeda shrubs are) and along the front garden plots (which are more difficult to get at because of the deer netting). After that I had to stop because of work but the rest of the week got hot and humid and then we were hit by Tropical Storm Isais, which brought down a lot of tree limbs. By the time I had collected and put them at the curb, my back was plenty sore. 

This area was cleared of grassy weeds but
I can only do so much. (Margo D. Beller)

That's how things stood until last week, when a friend sent me two of the exercises she does to relieve her back pain. It made a great and immediate difference. By the weekend, when I knew I'd have more than the short time between rising and work during the week, I girded for battle (or should I say "girdled"), warmed up my back and hips (something I should've been doing all along) and went out with my gloves, pail, pruner and my walking stick, which I found to be helpful in taking my weight as I stood up or bent forward to pull out the weeds, sparing my back.
Weeds are any plants that pop up in the wrong place. I've found some weeds pull out cleanly while others break at the top and you have to use both hands to pull the rest of it, with roots, out. Even then, there might be more below. Some weeds are grassy and can at least provide the satisfaction of clearing an entire area - for a time. Other weeds are vines. Ground ivy is a particular nemesis in my yard, as is the vine I can't identify that seems particularly fond of thorny wild rose bushes. However, lately I've also been seeing more wild strawberries, which provide smaller, drier versions of the stuff you get in the market. I can live with these, and the robins and other fruit-eating birds will enjoy those I don't choose to pick for my cereal.

Wild strawberries are a weed I tolerate. (Margo D. Beller)

I should also add even nonpoisonous weeds can have consequences. The plants have natural allies - the insects that use them for shelter. I was reminded of that when both my ankles suddenly felt as tho' they were on fire. I knew the cause - the flies referred to as "no-see-ums." I was not wearing ankle braces and the flies had free rein. I may have won the war but my ankles will now itch for days to come.

Ultimately I spent three hours, in several stages, to get around the areas I wanted to clear, pulling the weeds that were crowding the plants I want growing in the areas. As I worked I could hear chickadees, a Carolina wren, some jays and a catbird mewing. I was shielded from the sun by the trees as I worked, and there was a cooling breeze. Were it not for the physical effort of weeding it would've been an enjoyable time outside.

Everything I pulled is now atop the compost pile, covering the vegetable scraps feeding the worms. I have a feeling of accomplishment, and that should last at least until the next time I walk around the yard and see what has popped up in my absence.

Atop the compost pile. (Margo D. Beller)

At some point, as the days continue to get shorter, I will be cutting back the garden for its - and my - winter rest.  As usual at this time of year, I can't wait.

Trench Warfare

It is the nature of Nature that when you have a mowed field, you have to keep it mowed or it will become overgrown. Then the trees will start growing and completely change the typography. There are people who want this. Second-growth forests, as this regrowth is called, are good for a variety of birds and animals.

Trench with sensitive ferns (Margo D. Beller)

But on a much smaller scale, in this case my yard, I need to get rid of a different type of forest.

I was out with the hose early one morning this week to water the plants and I could not help but notice that thanks to the September heat that has followed the unusually fall-like weather in August - a reversal of seasons - the weeds and grasses are growing by leaps and bounds, thinking it is spring. It is hard for one woman to keep up and it is times like these I wish I could clone my nieces and nephews.

One area around the side of the house was on the verge of being swallowed up by the ground ivy. Bad enough it is fighting the grass in front of the house for survival. It has also found some comfortable dwelling space under Spruce Bringsgreen, whose prickly foliage keeps me from going under it to yank out the mats of ivy anymore than once or twice a year.

A mat of ground ivy was removed, exposing the
sprinkler head. (Margo D. Beller)

But this side area has a number of sensitive ferns that have done very well this year for the first time in a very long while, and I did not want the ivy in it. So I had to dig a trench.

Specifically, I had to dig a trench border.  I had to go to the edge of the area where the big shrubs, called andromeda, were planted, put in the shovel (after loosening things with the garden fork) and pull up the dirt, angling it in such a way that the grass and ivy in the lawn could not cross. Plants won't grow in air, so the wider the trench, the better the chance of keeping unwanted plants, even lawn grass, out.

It should've been easy enough. I've dug these trenches before. The problem is, I last dug one 10 years or more ago, and unless you fix your handiwork every few years, rain and wind will inevitably fill in the trench and the weeds will cross back to where you don't want them.

My plan was to rise early and try to finish the work before the sun rose high enough to warm that particular area. However, several things went wrong. First, I could not get myself out of bed before dawn. Second, I forgot about the difficulties in putting a shovel into dirt that has rocks and miles of shrub and weed roots under it. Third, I forgot the hand-to-hand combat. It's not enough to dig the trench, you have to pull out the undesirables from the area you have "liberated." It is very much like war without the shooting. 

Good trenches make good neighbors.
(Margo D. Beller)

The finished product makes the garden bed look neat but my back and knees almost finished me off. My compost bucket was filled with huge mats of ground ivy, particularly from in front of the air conditioner platform. There were also crab grass, some wood sorrel and other plants I can't identify. I just hope I got it all and didn't harm the ferns or buried daffodils much from my labor.

My plan was to do another garden bed not complicated by deer netting but my aging body forced me to wait a day. I had to be content putting a month's worth of brush to the curb in several trips using a cart and a wheelbarrow. The next day it took another two hours to do this bed, which has even more roots and rocks to dig through. Somehow I survived.

And I'm still not done. No gardener ever is. There is one super-sized problem area in front of the house, bound by netting, poles and a small fence to keep deer and rabbits out of plants I never would've put in had I known better 20 years ago. It will take an hour just to take out all the netting and then there will be hours of work to dig the trench, pull the weeds and then, as long as I have the poles down, move around pots, cut back shrubs and put down mulch. My back aches at the thought.

The next frontier (Margo D. Beller)

Because this area is in the sun for most of the day I will need a cooler day, preferably cloudy, an October day that actually feels like October. I could do at least some of this with MH's help, even though doing anything in the yard aside from mowing the lawn fills him with apprehension. I don't blame him. Sometimes it is easier to just do things myself rather than bark orders to get things just so. 

I could hire someone but I like working in the garden, despite the pain. I can listen to a distant Carolina wren, one of my favorite birds. I can take care of everything at once and then, I hope, leave this area of the garden alone until spring starts things all over again. 

Mainly, doing this stuff allows me to check that I can still do it. As time has gone by I have been forced to give up many things, including long, rocky hikes up steep inclines. The garden, even digging a trench, is something I can still do. I garden, therefore I am. 

I am battling myself, too.