Garden Paths
I made a mistake. I started a new garden. Stopped. Changed direction. Here was the mistake. Rather than continuing to dig up grass and turn dirt I decided to put down landscape material. I have no idea why I thought that was a good idea. But I did. Hauled in mulch. It looked nice for about three months. Then the bermuda grass did what bermuda grass does. It grew. Through the landscape cloth, over the cloth, and in the cloth.
This year I decided enough was enough. I pulled up the cloth. The area in question covers about 700 square feet. It was dirty, nasty work. But I got it up, and the chinquapin oak, for which the work was done, seemed to respond well as spring arrived. The dirt was turned, it was loose, there was oxygen, there was water. The leaves came in full and bright. Yesterday I finished straightening the rock border. The last piece of repair work.
Now the garden is orderly and painted with little splotches of color that I hope will grow large. Gregg’s Mist flower, upright rosemary, sage, and a tiny turks cap. I’m the sort of guy who likes his flowers to grow into the garden. Start small. Go big. Let the plants figure out what they want. It’s fun pondering what I might like for this new, bare, earth-turned pallet. I favor wildness, and the natural look. Meanwhile, I’m still digging up grass which gives me a good excuse to touch the earth and get a real feel for how things are going, because sometimes the earth tells you what it wants. An unexpected seed turns up to take me down a garden path where I’ve never been before, and I find it early because I’m on my knees in the dirt.