Hand Mowed Meadow

There was one last little chore to do to get the garden ready before spring began in earnest, that is if summer hasn't already started. The sunny utility meadow needed all the dried sticks from last years growth mowed down. This is a cut and drop operation done with the manual hedge clippers. Gardy wasn't about to try and remove all those sticks. Let them rot.

It could be done with a weed whacker, but that would send woody splinters flying and make a lot of racket. I prefer the quiet. The chance for close examination, precision cutting and careful stepping around the new life emerging from the soil is aided by a manual approach to the chore.



There really isn't that much left standing after a winter with so much snow. And this summer weather only kicked in last week. I was able to get to it before most thing had a chance to grow very tall.



You could say it is a fairly sizable space from one end to the other. It didn't take that long. I was in the tidy zen.



It just looks better without all them dead sticks poking up in the air. The new green growth will hide the flat on the ground brown much sooner. Besides that is how soil is built. I am speeding up the process by getting the dead material in contact with the moist, bacteria and fungi laden soil.

There are rational reasons not to be a total clean freak. In this forest setting it makes for a good compromise between my maintenance gardener psyche and the reality of the situation.



The deep forest does just fine without anyone picking up after it. The Hepatica, Anemone acutiloba has burst into bloom, the first native forest wildflower to show itself this spring.



Look at that mess.



There is bound to be some maintenance compromise in portions of the deep forest. There are parts of it I want to put trails through and I just know I won't be able to stop myself from picking up the bigger branches and arranging the fallen logs in a more pleasing manner. It's on the list.