Yay, day off from work! If I was smart, I would use this to do all kinds of stuff I don't have time to do, like run errands and buy groceries and cook and get my hair cut. But I'm probably not going to do that. I might get around to doing something outside. It is a little muggy outside, and it's going to start raining in a few hours.
WEEDS. I could try to pull more weeds out of the sidewalk bed. I got big plans for that spot! This fall, I'm going to try to get some sale perennials and fill it out a little better. I might even plant more Daffodils. I think there are at least 100 in there, but you literally cannot have too many Daffodils. I don't remember being all that impressed with the show last spring. And they're so easy to plant. This new Burgess website seems to have unbelievable prices. I can get 80 King Alfred Daffodils for $27. From White Flower Farm, that many would cost more than $100. If I did 10 patches of 8 Daffodils in there, that would be enough for it to start to look really full. I never did cut back the leaves of the Daffodils. I don't think that's a bad thing. They didn't start to turn brown until like, now. And I didn't see any reason to cut them back; maybe having that small amount of space occupied made for slightly less space for weeds to grow?
Anyway, the weed situation in there is out of control. And my philosophy on weeds in beds is that there shouldn't be any exposed dirt for weeds to use. Why wouldn't you fill the space you have? If I can get some cheap perennials in there, it would at least reduce the opportunities for weeds. And eventually, the bed will be basically self sufficient, and I won't even need to do anything.
Part of me thinks I should have used that space for the Tulips. The problem with the Tulips where they were is that they're so crowded in with other plants, and I don't think the front bed drains quite as well as the sidewalk bed. If they're in an area where no one fucks with them, they're much more likely to perennialize. I guess that area might be a little more accessible to deer. I've seen them around there before, like yesterday, in broad daylight! What kind of deer walks around a residential area, on a weekend when we're all right here, in the summer, at noon? Something is wrong with these deer. But I think all I need to do is spray some deer repellent. This "Deer Out" stuff I found on Amazon sounds amazing. The reviews are so positive, and everyone says it just smells minty. Active ingredients are peppermint oil, white pepper, garlic, and some putrescent egg solid, but not that much, apparently. I don't think it will take much. I generally have very little problem with deer, and after that one incident, they didn't even come back for the rest. I think they have plenty to eat around here, so a mild deterrent will handle it. I'm also planning to put a ton of Tulips in the patio bed, which I think will look amazing. If a deer actually walks all the way up to my front door and into the patio, I will freak the hell out. So, I'll probably not bother to spray those.
But anyway. I'm not going to dig up all of those Daffodils out of the Sidewalk bed and replant the area with Tulips. I'm going for a naturalized, low maintenance area over there, and Daffodils are the right choice. Couldn't hurt to have some nice Crocus in there... 80 bulbs is only $17 from Burgess.
Now, I know that when I go looking for Perennials in like, September, I'm not really going to have my first choices. I am definitely going to be strict about the color palette. I only want red and yellow. NO PINK. I want Coreopsis, for sure. It's not a very impressive plant, but I think it's really tough. I've seen some at Wedgewood that have really nice flowers, mixes of red and yellow. If they're still there, I'll go for those. I might even be willing to pay $10 for them. I would also do Echinacea if I can find some really red ones. And there's always the Black Eyed Susan.
Ok, but don't get like, 2 of all of the above. Ideally, I want to get like 3 more Yarrow that match the 2 already in there. I'm pretty sure I have the "Paprika" kind. I think that's a great plant to have in there. It's really drought resistant, it flowers for like, 5 months, I can use it as a cut flower (or dried!), and the deer supposedly don't go for it. And I like its leaf texture. I think it's a nice contrast to all the others. (Although it's really just grassy weeds in there now.) That's the first priority, to get the same Yarrow and get like, 3 of them, and plant them closer to the back. Then I think the next thing is the Coreopsis. I wold think those would be cheap. They kinda look cheap. I would plant those more on the sloped side, or to the right of the Yarrow in there now. I like the idea of a lot of dark red Echinacea in there, so if I happen to find the exact kind I want and they're like, $5, then yes, I'll get like, 5 of those. They would go near the back, I think. They should get to be like, 3 feet tall.
Of course, there are about 8 variegated Liriope in there that really should be divided. I would want to do with them what I did with the ones in the front bed. I want to split them into quarters at least, maybe smaller. Then they should go primarily along the edges. There's a lot to work with, and it could make a pretty nice border. Unlike the front bed, I have no real desire to plant any annuals in this area, so I can totally use these as the front of the bed, or even the back. I don't think I will get a border that's quite as dense as what my mom has, which is fine, since that's a little more of a formal kind of look. But my hope is that if the perimeter is filled out with something tough like that, weeds will have a harder time moving in. I think I have enough Liriope to span the whole thing, at least the front. I could take out the ones from the Patio Bed, even. I do not like them in there. I put them in because they were there, and I wanted to fill it out quickly, but that is not something I needed help doing. The Coleus are doing a fine job of that on their own. And Liriope does not look good at eye level, it might as well be a weed, and it's blacking my view of the Begonias. So I think I will take it out in any case. I could even put it along the edge of the second raised bed. It's just about the right height, it will cover up the wall of the raised bed, and it's so tough that if I kick it around a little when I'm picking beans or whatever, it should be fine.
Anything I do with the Liriope, I would be doing next Spring. I'll wait until the landscaping people come around and chop it all back, and then when everything is thawed out, and it's rained a lot but it's not muddy, and ideally before they mulch, I'll go out and dig them up and chop them into little pieces. The approach we took with the other grasses seemed to work. I would dig them most of the way up, but the root ball was really too big for me to lift, so we would use the shovel to hack off pieces that were the desired size. Of course, if I'm doing this in the spring, I will need to be careful about not trampling all the Daffodils. I think that was ok when we did it this past spring, they had come up, so we could easily tell where they were, but they weren't blooming yet. And at that point (like, April, I think?) the herbaceous perennials won't even really be showing yet. I definitely want to transplant some of the Liriope to form a row right in front of the Yarrow that's in there now. It's looking a little messy now, because those plants are 6-8 inches back from the edge, and they kind of flop over and into the sidewalk. I mean, I could stake them, which would involve buying even more shit, or I could try to make some kind of stakes and tie them back, which might look terrible. But if I had a dense row of Liriope there, they wouldn't fall over in the first place. Boom, problem solved.
That reminds me- I want to make sure they do not cut down the ornamental grasses this fall. I don't think you're supposed to cut anything back in the fall, right? And I really like having them there after they're browned out; it's winter interest! And when we divided them, I'm sure it took a toll and getting chopped back in the fall and then hit with the snow would not be good for them. So what can I do? The only thing I can think of is to put up a sign or a note or something. "Please Do Not Cut These Back Until Spring." And maybe a picture? Is that insulting? It's basically implying they can't read or don't speak English. Presuming it's always the same people, the ones that I've seen out there today are mostly young white guys, one black guy, so yeah, don't draw a picture. Asshole. Should I be really sanctimonious and include an explanation?
"Please Don't Cut Down Ornamental Grasses Until Spring. The dried stalks help to protect the plants over the winter and seed heads provide food for birds. These grasses were divided this year to prevent die-out in the centers. They will re-grow better if they aren't cut down before the winter. They can be cut back in the spring, at the same time as the Liriope. Thank you!"
or maybe just
"Please don't cut down ornamental grasses until spring. Thank you! Sarah, A12"
Yeah, let's go with that second one. How to make this sign weatherproof? Maybe just write it on a piece of cardboard with a Sharpie, and stick that cardboard in a plastic bag, and tape it to that post in the middle? Yeah that sounds good. What's the other option, getting it laminated? Maybe I'll do more than one sign. How long to leave it up? I guess until we get snow.
So clearly I'm not going to do anything with the weeds in there today. I did pull out the really big nasty ones yesterday, but I didn't mess with the grassy ones. I don't know if I will ever do anything. I mean, philosophically, I am opposed to spending tons of time and energy pulling out tons of weeds from a big open space. Why would I want to do that? That isn't fun at all. And it just ends up full of weeds again after 2 weeks. Fuck that. I'm not trying to do anything that hard. Why would I do that when I could sit on my couch day drinking and looking at pictures of plants on the internet? I would much, much rather fill that space out with native, low maintenance, flowering, pollinator attracting, drought tolerant and hopefully cheap perennials. Oh, and this conventional wisdom about wood mulch preventing weeds is demonstrably false. That stupid bed is piled with it, and by now you can't even see the wood mulch under all the weeds.
Oh wow, I can also grow Butterfly Bush from seed! Burpee has two, one is the orange one, and the other is like, red and yellow like the Yarrow. Hm, that one does say it's an annual, which is weird. Still worth a try I think. And I do want to try to fill that space with Sunflowers and Zinnias. Might as well use it as a cutting garden, since it's there, and getting a ton of sun all day.
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