The two-storey Victorian house I live in has a small front garden instead of a grassy lawn. A garden there was a very good idea, especially since the land slopes. It has problems, though. The major plants are non-native, Japanese shrubs that have to be kept trimmed. Their berries aren't eaten by the native birds. One bush was eight feet tall. I attacked it the year the house was painted. The lilac bush was planted too near to the steps.
Up until this year the upstairs neighbor and I have kept the bushes trimmed way back. The lilac bush got out of control. This year the garden was a bit too much. I had the stress of waiting to find out the future of my job of over ten years, my spring outdoor allergies, and newly discovered food intolerances.
This year the yard was taken over by milkweed and bittersweet. I don't look forward to tackling the bittersweet. Last year it took two hours to dig up the weeds in one square foot of ground. The unwanted saplings—two are maple and catalpa—are growing very well and need to be eliminated. I tried a couple different ways in the past that wouldn't harm the soil and they didn't work. Now it's time for the age-old technique of girdling the trees. I bought my first hand ax today.
September this year seems to be very promising. The weather is usually still mild. There's still a good amount of daylight. I am not working forty hours a week. I think I'm almost excited about it. The next steps are washing my gardening jeans and buying more yard waste bags. I have misplaced my gardening gloves, inside I think, and I hope my old winter gloves will work for now. I plan on cutting all the green stuff shorter so I can get at the roots. Then I should be able to girdle the trees. It's recommended to cut two bands down to the sapwood on each tree trunk. Then it'll be back to grubbing up everything else. I know butterflies love milkweed. I'm going to keep a small patch of them. The birds, beeds, and butterflies should love the native flowers I plan to grow there instead. Somehow I have to dig up the bushes. I have an idea about that though. The last change will be planting lilac bush saplings centered in the back between the windows as it should have been planted.
I don't even know what the ground is like. There is black landscape fabric down. Here it could be anything from sand, to clay, or large pieces of rock or construction debris. I guess a good sign is the milkweed, goldenrod , and hostas are very healthy.
I don't have the energy I used to and I've had difficulty getting used to that. It's something to do with menopause, poor digestion, and allergies. I really want to do this though. At least once I eliminate the unwanted growth it should be better.
The last assortment of flowers I came up with. I have the seeds, too. I know trying to grow seedlings in a less than sunny apartment that I keep cool in the winter is not a good idea. I don't have the extra room for a table of flats. Nor do I want to pay for equipment to do it well. I'm going to scatter the seeds that I have on the ground this fall and hope for the best. Since they are perennials native to this area, some should grow. Hopefully it won't take too long before the garden is a patch of colorful flowers. I think the garden will be like my genealogy, never quite finished.
