When I bought this place, the cross ties were there, all crooked; they're only a little bit better now. I simply can NOT lift one of them, not even one end.
Those GLORIOUS irises gave me great joy and photographic opportunities
But... the bed was too crowded with the irises being overrun with Daylilies which were too crowded to bloom.
Plus, the mailbox was wobbly.
So, I spent 3 hours today doing something that should only have taken 1, and then I had to come in and rest (read nap) for a couple of hours.
In my excavating and cleaning up this property, I've found a LARGE amount of landscaping resources that were buried, overgrown and hidden.
Such as these 6 wall blocks
I used a combination of Pitch fork, trenching shovel, mattock and hand trowel to first lift those beautiful iris rhizomes out, trying not to break them (not entirely successfully I might add) and get them out of the way.
Then using the same pitch fork to sift and pry, I cleaned as much grass, "choke cherry" and assorted undesirables outta the soil, then put those 6 blocks in place.
I put the irises back, (OH WAIT! First I had to shore up that mailbox post, it is no longer wobbly), brought down some 'black gold' I'd collected from a long neglected roof gutter
Then as top dressing, (to conserve moisture) I went over to the edge of the lawn under the trees where the leaves hadn't been disturbed, and gathered some already decomposing leaf mulch, complete with worms and bugs.
Now, to find out where I can put the remainders,
and get the rest of those daylilies put somewhere.
I am one tired puppy tonight my friends.
"Things that took too long"
by
Jerry E Smith
©05/06/2021
All images are original
Self Portrait from about 1978
