Last year, my left hip was replaced, so little to no pruning was done in the front right garden, which the wild took over this year.
I planted this spring but did not consider what a few seasons without pruning the pear, apple, and grapes might have on the final result. Then I lost control. As any gardener will tell you, look away in late June and early July, and nature will run riot in your garden. The newspaper will send out their gardening columnist to feature your garden in an article on what not to do with a garden.
So there I was in September, and here I am in early October, trying to clear the mess before I have tons of leaves to process in the mulcher. You know one thing at a time? I’ve filled five large paper garden waste bags with clipped branches, put aside sawn limbs, and pulled thousands of healthy weeds. A friend made a jibe about penetrating the Heart of Darkness. I was not amused at this completely gratuitous Conrad reference. When they saw me advancing with a pruning saw held high, they insisted that I had misconstrued their meaning. I grumbled that I’d construed it just fine, and they could either put on some work gloves and help or leave. Shopping for a fall wardrobe with the spouse was vastly more appealing and a pressing need.
So here I am, looking over some of the limbs of pear and apple, trying to estimate if they’ll make attractive hair pins, spurtles, and other carved items when drier. They are not large enough for spoons. This, unfortunately, puts me in mind of my shop, where some thick, wide portions of cherry call out to be carved into bowls. Then there is the eagle I started in the spring that needs its head carved before I can do the feathers and the forty or so spoon blanks, cutting boards, and other backlogged stuff.
Yeah, sure! One thing at a time. Right!
I had to laugh (with you, not at you!) at your having to pull ‘thousands of healthy weeds.’ I have one in my backyard–not sure what it is but it has spread and has the prettiest purple flowers. So it stays. It has now become a ‘wildflower’–not a weed!
Well one definition of a weed is an herb or wildflower where you don’t want it.
We had a weed that sounds like that one. It was impossible to get rid of, had lovely purple bell-like flowers, so we just let it be for the pollinating insects. It became a flower, then, because it served a gardening purpose!
Thank you, Doug. You give me hope. We mowed it, but I am sure it will be back.
My mother called them bluebells, but I don’t know what they actually were. They didn’t look like bluebells.
Sounds like an adventure Lou!
Anita, I am indeed afraid of going into the deepest areas…something is lurking there…just before Halloween.
Lucky You!
Yes, fruit trees don’t like to behave! Miss a year of pruning them back at your peril. As for weeds in the garden, I used them to help turn the clay when I live into a lovely tilth soil. They also provided some food for critters that preyed on my desirables otherwise.
Well, everything will be composted, but what a job! And unlike you Doug, I currently do not have a cat to supervise me…so the job will not be up to feline standards.
I did it the lazy (?) way. I dug it into the garden spaces and let the worms and soil life deal with the breakdown. I worked well for me.
I’m in the same boat but the trees in question are “volunteer” elm trees. I’m actually looking forward to the moment when their leaves have fallen and I can attack them with ferocity and cunning.
Hmmmm, ferocity and cunning. I like it!
Yes, one things at a time