First, be careful what you wish for. And plant, however far away. Specifically, don't plant Virginia creeper along your fence unless you want it to be an invasive mess 30 years later. Now, I like Virginia creeper vines in their place, and the fence should have been ideal. But the ferns appeared and choked them out (!!!!!!) so I no longer saw that brilliant red fall foliage offset by blue berries. Now that I'm snowbirding, I still don't see it, though not because the plant is no longer there. Like me it's merely relocated. Not south, but to the raspberry patch.
After a week of hard work, most of the leafy vines are gone. Some of the underground roots too. However... once the full patch gets cleared out we can go in and saw trees down, chop vine roots and "paint' them all with stump killer. Then sit back and watch for whatever returns and needs another deadly dose.
Of course, there won't be sitting. Not this year. Too many high priority jobs remain. After those, too many lower priority jobs remain.
Next lesson: when Virginia creeper vines create a canopy over the former raspberry patch, they create the perfect shady conditions for the lily of the valley to take over at ground level. Again, I love lily of the valley and planted it deliberately - in the front of the house. The flowers smell lovely, something from my childhood as well as much of my adulthood. They require so little care they tend themselves to become invasive. The good news is when you go in to dig out the few remaining weeds and new trees they haven't choked out of their patch, stepping on them doesn't destroy them. For long. As to how they traveled from the front of the house to the deep back yard, I blame birds. Those pretty red fruits get chomped, seeds pooped out. Boom! Population explosion.
Lesson Three: The grass in the original "lawn" is still alive and well. Forget bluegrass, red fescue, whatever you think you need in your lawn. When we moved in, it was a "virgin" lot. There were no trees, nothing above 6' tall on the whole property. The 6' groundcover consisted of grass, thistles, grass, sedges, thistles, grass, dandelions, and grass. Plus some weeds of course. Our philosophy for lawn care is whatever survives the treatment we give it is welcome. We did try to add white clover early on, another childhood favorite, but it didn't last. And of course Paul reseeded purple violets from the half dozen plants we brought over from our previous home, all over this new yard. Deliberately, He'd watch the seed pods and catch them just before they !popped! open so he could control where they landed. It worked. But that tall grass still exists in those niches where mowers don't reach, and that includes the gardens.
Lesson Four: Eventually purple violets will self-seed and invade the raspberry patch. Especially when grass clippings are dumped there for a couple dozen years to enrich the soil in the patch.
Lesson Five: Remember those amur maples you loved for their fall color and planted at the front corners of the house back in '91? Remember how many seeds they produced? Remember when you finally got sick of them and chopped them out? Remember how they still pop up all over the yard? 'Nuff said.
Lesson Six: There is no such thing as finishing the job. Nor doing it in a single day. Or week. Work hard but pace yourself, just like in the pool. Start stopping - yeah, I know it sounds funny but bear with me - when you start to tire rather than after you hit that wall. There is still the job of moving piles of what you pulled or dug out, collecting tools and your presumably now empty water bottle and putting them in their places, and the requirement for getting into the house where you can consume a quick snack to replenish your energy. Exhaustion lasts hours. It lasts longer if you can't bother to walk another 10 feet to the refrigerator and back again. And need I mention the likelihood of that post-sweating shower when you can't bring yourself to even eat?
Lesson Seven: The bird house boxes do rot out after being ignored for too many years. However, while they can't use the boxes anymore, birds will use the vine canopy as a foundation to keep doing what they need to do. (I had to check the nest to verify it wasn't in current use.) They will be different birds however, since the ones that use boxes are a tad fussy about having their fully enclosed spaces, and are unused to winding twigs around vines and fighting their way through to feed their brood. Next time, paint the boxes! Often. And keep the vines away.
Lesson Eight: Wear your sweats. Not just because you will sweat, since this is summer in humidville, but because the mosquitoes can't get you through the fabric. and the buggers really do love you. It could be considered a compliment, but.... anyway, hold those out fromt he laundry and keep wearing them for the yard work. Why launder stuff every day when it's just going to be nasty immediately again? And don't forget that part of lesson six about saving enough energy to clean yourself and putting on something more discretely fragranced.
Lesson Nine: Wear a bandana. First you have to locate a couple. Once that is done, wear it above your eyes. They really do allow you to work past the point where you start to sweat, keeping it out of your eyes. Of course, again refer to lesson six about not overdoing it out there, now that you've lost that cue.
Lesson Ten: I consider this the most important lesson. You can get up off the ground again after you fall when you overbalance out there. When nobody is home, or just sleeping. When you didn't bring your phone out. When there's nothing to help pull yourself up again and the knees and their assorted muscles don't do the job by themselves, and you can't kneel painlessly because you no longer have kneecaps. When you do your best to avoid the resultant pain where it feels both fake bones are trying to cut their way out through the knee. When your arms alone can't pull you up and you can't get the leverage to get your legs into position.
At least the ground is soft, not rocks all over like in Arizona. And at least your mom taught you to butt-walk as a kid and you found it fun. It took an hour, trying various things, finally giving up doing it inside the garden and butt walking over to the ramp from the deck. Admittedly, part of that time was due to deciding as long as you were going that way, you'd pull out more weeds along your route from the other side of the patch you'd been ignoring thus far.
The solution turned out to be getting the right leverage. It involved a final yard of crawling, but once at the bottom of the ramp, the vertical posts gave the arms exactly what they needed to assist in stabilizing the torso so the legs could get into position and do their work. I'd offer to show you, but really, I'd appreciate it if you don't actually ask me to.
Meanwhile, I'm avoiding overbalancing out there. And I told the guys to please check on me in the garden if they get home from work or fishing or just wake up and I'm not where I'm supposed to be. Just in case. I might be a long way from the ramp. I'm just hoping it becomes their lesson learned too.
No comments:
Post a Comment