Gardening on Earth Day

So I only learned after the fact that I was working in the garden on Earth Day. It's just so beautiful today!

I am taking pictures weekly of the garden and posting them on Facebook. I also have been trying to post a video tour I made last year with my dad's camera, but it won't work for some reason. I think there's a three-video limit that they're not revealing.

But the garden is looking pretty good. I spent the first part of the morning cutting dead branches off one of my rosebushes and weeding my vegetable garden. I was quite surprised to return from Toronto yesterday to find all the hyacinth in full bloom, and some of the tulips budding. So I decided that today would be the day I start the large haul of spring garden cleaning. There was a hyacinth in my vegetable garden and I had no idea how it got there. My brother-in-law stopped by to drop off my key and said that there had been hyacinth and tulips there before, around the fishpond-which-is-now-my-vegetable-garden. Once it dies for the season, I'll move it. I guess I didn't notice it since the veggie garden didn't get planted until the end of May, early June of last year.

The second part of my day involved raking under the willow bushes, and pruning the crap out of the one by the front fence. I actually bagged most of what I chopped off this time, as opposed to leaving it on the ground to kill the grass like I did last year. Tomorrow I'll be cutting down the large branches that got lopped off, then shoved back under the willow and bagging them too.

It's amazing how huge these willows are. I focused on cutting off lower branches so that one day we can put a bench underneath its canopy. Heck, if we had a bench now we could probably manage it. A few wispy branches in the face isn't too bad.

So, giant dead lopped off branches (and a forgotten dead juniper) aside, the yard is shaping up quite nicely. I think last year's clean-up involved about fifteen bags of yard waste, and so far I'm only up to two. I'm thinking maybe two more bagsful and I'll be done. A great improvement over last year.