The predicted rain for the weekend never materialized, so I got to be outside working the best part of the day.
Mostly I weeded the various beds. A lot of my friends get the wrong idea when I tell them I like a natural looking garden with lots of native plants. They think a garden like this requires no care. I am old and lazy so I wish that were true. And there are some parts of it that do look like it has gone wild.
It might be true that a native plant garden takes a little less care than one with exotics. But the yard with the minimum care has got to be an expanse of lawn grass that you can just hire somebody to mow flat once a week. I really cannot understand these people who promote alternatives to lawns on the basis of easy care. On the basis of beauty and interest, yes. But easy care? Not unless I am doing something drastically wrong.
While I was weeding Tricia planted the tomatoes and peppers in the vegetable garden. We are little late setting these out. We will have Early Girl, Celebrity, Fourth of July and Red October tomatoes this year. For peppers, I picked out jalapenos, habaneros and serranos. We usually have some volunteers in the garden that come up from seed from last year’s plants too.
Sable tended the potatoes.
Comments (3)
The clouds decided to hang out here. They just love the California weather, Bill.
I agree absolutely. My meadow garden was the first one I planted and the one that is the most difficult to keep. I thought I’d plant wildflowers and buffalograss…natural and low maintenance. Not. The wildflowers look nice for about six weeks (right now) and the buffalograss has never caught on. Because of the flowers, I can’t mow and because of the grass I can’t mulch. So to keep invasive grasses out I have to weed by hand.
I’m in the process of converting the whole thing to a mulched bed with larger grasses (like fountain grass) and salvias, shrubs and bulbs (like rainlilies and flowering onions). I’ll still let the bluebonnets and larkspur run wild in the spring. But I’ve become a convert to ordered beds of flowering shrubs.
and a fine job of tending she is doing too! Bill, you are a shadow of your former self!