THE GARDENER'S APPRENCTICE-MID APRIL

The refrain this spring is “one of these days.” As in one of these days we’ll get most of the weeds pulled. Or one of these days I’ll get the plants or pavers or stepping stones placed where they belong the FIRST time. A girl can dream, can’t she?


When we first planned the redo on the front yard back in ’03 there was a large Austrian pine on the south side of the yard. At the time we didn’t even take that section of the yard into our plans and it’s been a pain ever since. The tree is gone courtesy of the local utility company after a really bad ice storm. We’ve tried groundcovers and other plants but nothing has really worked. And it’s hard to get water to it.


We planted some volunteer lavender on the property line last year and they did just fine. So, this weekend we took the bull by the horns and cleared out that section again and planted lavender across that front section. There will be some other flowers behind that and then the garden section which was the old rose garden.


The arbor is repositioned, but I haven’t had time to secure it to the fence stakes. As we work up the garden section it looks like we’ll finally get the stepping stones down. Again with the repositioning. This time stepping stones. The herb garden in back didn’t really pan out. It’s on the north side on the east side of the hill and it gets almost no sun for half the year. So herbs to the front where I may actually remember that we have them. And I think we’ll just plant wild flowers out back. Pictures maybe in a month or so.


Actually it’s beginning to look pretty good. Granted, I winced a little when mom pointed out that the section where we pulled the shrubby groundcover next to the street really needed to be spaded before we could do anything else. Ooookay. That’s what apprentices are for. Spading is not a problem. Spading while standing on a slope with holes in it from plants you’ve dug up is a problem. As in my feet are killing me, here.