Here's what's been keeping us busy...

Hello there! I mentioned recently that I would share with you what's been keeping us busy, so here we go. Of course, I just can't seem to let go of the garden, but I promise I will try to now.

Before we went up to Birdsong a few weeks ago, we noticed that we were getting a lot of wire grass along the rear border of our yard. Wire grass is a very bad mutation of Bermuda Grass. It is wispy on the top, spreads via runners, and has roots that are like, well, its name, wire. We hate it and it can ruin a nice fescue lawn in one season. So we decided to kill it all off and move the rear border forward. We spent the last 10 days or so on this project, first with Mr. Perch digging out the dead grass and moving all the concrete edging forward, and then me relocating several daylilies and bearded iris from our side gardens to the new section. The plants were not doing very well at the edges of the woods that surround our lot because the pine trees were robbing them of moisture, nutrients, and sunlight.

Here is where we used the garden hose to

outline what would become the edges of the 

expanded bed. 

We then used spray paint to mark it,

and applied Round Up within to kill

off the wire grass.

You can see below that the original border

ended just in front of the Crepe Myrtle

tree in the center...

When we returned from the mountains the bad grass was

all dead, so Hubby dug it all out and moved all of the

concrete edgers out to the end of the new. 

We only needed to buy eight additional edgers 

to fill the gap!

He then turned the garden over to me.

How lucky.

No, really!

After four six-hour days of digging holes,

filling them with new garden soil,

(yes, in NC we have to BUY garden soil 

because our dirt is so bad here!)

digging up the daylilies and bearded iris,

trimming off the dead foliage,

re-writing their identification markers,

hosing the bad soil off of their roots,

deciding where they would be placed,

filling the holes with more good soil...

...watering them all in...

...adding some of my home-brewed compost

to each...

...and covering all with fresh pine straw...

...my babies found their new home and

were all snuggled in for a cold winter's nap.

All 88 of them!

You can not see him too well in the photos above,

but in the front of the bed is my little

moon gazer boy,

a beautiful garden statue.

....................................

Here is the new section seen in back of a portion of my herb garden,

to which I added yet more daylilies early this past spring...

I only hope that next year at this time my new 

bed looks like the daylily and iris bed

that you see below...

When we widened this bed in the spring,

these plants were all unhealthy,

and look at them now!

Receiving the benefit of being reached

by the sprinkler system is such a bonus, 

especially when we are away...

Oh, have I mentioned that I love daylilies and iris?

Almost as much as hydrangea!

And, in spite of all the work

and my unappreciative back,

I'm still not ready for a condo!!

I hope you have a wonderful day.