Monday, July 20, 2009

Confessions of a flower-bed addict

The arrangement of potted black-eyed Susans at the luncheon table was pretty. The host said the centerpieces could be purchased for 3 bucks. Good deal, I said.

We got them home, fertilized them and kept them in the pot for about a week. They started to get root-bound and the leaves were turning yellow at the tips. Had to find a good spot for them.

Black-eyed Susans need full sun. The ones we have around our shaded house barely make it. There was a good spot down by the road at the entrance to our driveway, but there was a 18-inch hickory stump exactly where the new bed needed to be. The stump was nestled in between two boulders.

I took a look at the stump. It had started to rot. How hard could it be to pull out a rotting stump? Four hours, two tractors and four logging chains later, the stump is gone. I cut all the protruding roots with a chain saw, but we had to pull out the tap roots with the chains hooked to both tractors.

I had some large rocks left-over from my wishing well (see post of June 19), so I outlined the bed between the two boulders. After a tractor scoop of topsoil and a scoop of compost, the bed was ready for black-eyed Susans.

Another simple task takes up six hours of my time when I need to be doing a thousand other things like finishing the garden fence. I may have to join Flower Beds Anonymous. "Hello, my name is Vince and I can't stop building flower beds."

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