This week wasn't as productive in the garden as last week, but I still got some stuff done. On Monday I planted the balloon flowers down by the road. Tuesday I took the day off. Wednesday I mowed the lawn. Thursday I spent the day finishing the drywall, so no time for gardening. Friday I was feeling really crummy, between lack of sleep the night before, and the Armada having another jam session (with amps set to 11) in the afternoon, so I did nothing.
Today I planted some lantana down by the road. It's supposed to be a good ground cover, hardy, can handle slopes, tolerant of drought, and very few pests. Sounds nearly perfect. Lantana is also loved by butterflies. They planted some right outside the radio station and there are always clouds of little butterflies all over it.
The soil continues to be quite rocky, but I dug big holes so the plants will have at least a chance of getting their roots out. Along with the rocks I dug out some huge bramble roots. (I guess actually they're called rhisomes? The thick rooty things right under the plants.) The brambles have pretty much owned that slope for the past few years and I'm sure it's going to be a continual problem. Well if we just keep pulling as many root systems as we can every time we plant in there, eventually we'll get the better of them.
Took me about 2 hours to get the lantana in the ground, and it was hotter than I expected too. Good thing I put the dogs back inside. They like hanging out with me while I work in the yard, but this weather isn't safe for them. I got a little overheated myself. Nothing dangerous, just that I could feel how hot & thirsty I was when I went in for a drink of water. Which I really should do more often. I have a bad habit of treating it as a reward, thinking "I'll go inside for a drink after all the holes are dug," when really I should have taken a break after each hole.
The two gardening books I had ordered arrived: Gardening Southern Style and The Southern Gardener's Book of Lists. The former is an instructional book with an almanac in the back. It's written by someone in Mississippi so the advice is geared to the Deep South and not always totally applicable to the Piedmont. But still, for a beginner like me it's invaluable. The list book is just what the title says: 200 lists of plants. Lists of everything you can imagine: shrubs that like shade, ground covers that grow on slopes, vines that smell nice, perennials that bloom all summer, annuals that reseed themselves, etc. I think I'm going to be taking that one with me to go plant shopping. My only gripe with it is that it doesn't describe the plants at all, just lists their names. So, even though I wanted to limit myself to 2 books, I had to order another one with an encyclopedia of plant information. And I ordered the book about mongo while I was at it. At least I'm using my Amazon store to get myself a 15% discount on all these books.
1 Comments
maybe you should have some kind of portable water with you-- in a bottle or something.
when i was doing several hours of heavy work in my yard yesterday, i took many long breaks. i have found that taking a break long enough to get rested means that i can work longer and get more done. i basically take breaks whenever i feel very tired, and just drop everything knowing that i'll come back to it.