Saturday, May 13, 2023

Gardening Begins

May is gardening month hereabouts. This is so despite the Tuesday night frost warning, which, thankfully, didn't eventuate with the mercury stopping its descent a few degrees above freezing.

With my legs still a little stiff from doing work out back earlier in the week, I decided that it was time to tackle the front.

As you know, the little patch of grass had already been mowed, but it was chock full of dandelions, and it was time to try to extricate them from the lawn, a process that they resisted mightily.


In the upper left background, we can see that  the neighbour's side is quite full with dandelions. In the past we (as in Sue) have weeded their half too, but as toils become more difficult on our aging bods, we will leave it up to them from now on. Doing our little patch was demanding enough, even though I was sitting on the job in the above photo.

Then it was time to whack the edges with our new whacker, and quite possibly our final weed whacker. They don't last though, so you never know. I wonder how many we have purchased in the past 45 years? I think it is the third such purchase in our 18 years at this address.


It is alarming how difficult it is on an older body to take care of little chores like this.

Meanwhile, the tulips are looking good. Other perennials will emerge in due course, but they will be greatly enhanced by the pots that Sue will put together to place here, there. thither and yon. It is still probably a week too early to do those bedding plants, but I will get back to you when we do.


18 comments:

  1. These tulips grow quite large and tall!

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  2. As much as we enjoyed outside gardening chores, admittedly we no longer miss doing them for many of the same reasons you mentioned, AC. Thankfully, you have a smallish front yard.

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  3. The tulips are lovely. And dandelions are vital for pollinators, so you could leave them alone and save your aging bod! And the bees!

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  4. I sympathize entirely with the older body thing. EVERYTHING takes twice (or three or four times) as long--if it's doable at all. Still, it's good to get the fingers in the dirt.

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  5. Good for you working on lawn and trimming as well! So glad the pile of snow helped those beautiful tulips survive!

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  6. I love those colorful tulips.

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  7. Tulips are so cheerful! My weed whacker is over 10 years old--very light and battery operated. I love it! I just mow the dandelions down so I'm impressed with your industry.

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  8. I think I may plant some things this week even though it is to be rather cold on Wednesday.

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  9. I think my record at any one address is my current one at not quite 11 years!

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  10. As we get older, what once was easy is now a chore, but it's great that you can still get it done. Yay for you!

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  11. We will be at our garden in the next few weeks too. It get harder every year!

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  12. Frost free date has been Victoria Day as long as I can remember. And since I still call it Victoria Day, you can tell that is a looong time.
    Both the weed whacker and our knees wear out and, in the case of whackers (two hanging in the barn ready to use at present) and my knee (one replaced), fixes are possible if expensive and quite painful, both on the pocket book and the patient.
    I love the way Sue's fine eye for colour and design makes your property look.
    We have all the trillia out now. Not a red one to be seen anywhere I have looked. Rats.

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  13. I continue photographing tulips, but would be helpless gardening.

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  14. Just don't work too hard.

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  15. When I old my Dad that I was getting the OAS, he said, "You ain't seen nothing yet." He was right. I now know what he was going through. so I sympathize with you.

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  16. Maybe it is the biologist in me, or maybe it is that I am lazy…. but we do not try to fight against dandelions. They are only there for a short while and we accept them. To me they look reasonably pretty until they are in the stage where they have shed their seeds and you just have stems. But I try to keep mowing the stems down.

    PipeTobacco

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  17. I just can't weed anymore or crouch down. (Or, for that matter, get up if I try.) So, we mow the weeds and hope the ones that come up where the flowers are at least have blooms on them so they look like happy accidents. (They never do!)

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  18. I hear you about gardening chores! I had an achy back.
    I've planted my planters. What the heck. I'd just kill them, forgetting to water them, if I didn't put them in the pots.

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