Saturday, October 28, 2006

More a sort of Apres-Vie

Sunflower heads, October 28, 2006
I pulled out my garden today. I started by decapitating my sunflowers with a machete, then pulling out the stalks. The ground was completely saturated, thanks in no small part to my uphill neighbor directing all of his downspouts onto our property instead of into the street. A few times I sank in the mud past my ankles, and seriously worried that my garden might have been transformed into a bed of quicksand. But in the end, I got out all the dead plants and the taller weeds. The grassy weeds I'll leave in until next Spring, to serve as erosion control.

I intend to use the sunflower heads as bird feeders this Winter. As they are kinda soaked right now I'm leaving them out to dry for a while. In the picture above you also see Royal Highness rose hips, my Marjolein Bastin garden swing, and a lilac that I planted a few years ago.

2 comments:

anne said...

There's just something about the thought of someone whacking sunflowers with a machete that makes me laugh.

D.B. Echo said...

My machete and my mattock are two of my favorite gardening tools. Very basic, very primitive, built only for gardening violence.

Anne, I seem to recall you have some experience with poison ivy. It appears that my mother managed to locate some in "her" part of the garden, by getting stuck by one of its stem thorns. Her arm is swelling and she's heading out to the hospital in Berwick to have my brother check it out. I guess I need to remove that. Would the Winter be a good time to take it out?