Let The Weeding And Yanking Begin

The Lush has reached the stage when weeding around all the baby trees and shrubberies must begin in earnest if they are to have a better chance of success. Every bit of sunlight that touches them in an already shaded forest garden matters.

The editing process must also begin. The unwanted must go before they have a chance to spread or bloom and set seed. The tall and floppy New England Aster gets yanked. I don't worry about the roots so much. I just don't want it to bloom and set seed. When I keep yanking the stems, the crowns eventually give up and die.

In some places I can use the weed whacker to clear around the baby shrubberies with close in weeding done by hand. These newly acquired variegated red twig dogwoods have leafed out nicely.

In other places the clearing around must be done by hand. The remaining edited Lush is meant to be part of the overall garden.

So many of my shrubberies were started as not much more than rooted twigs that I find in my travels. Some are no more than two feet tall at this point. The Lush is already at two feet plus with some of it quickly aiming for six. The baby shrubberies need my assistance.

The grasses would do fine in the Lush, but these border a path that gets whacked. They also have more presence when they are not crowded with six foot tall companions.

One little rhododendron, safe for a couple of weeks. The weeding around will have to happen several times over the season of vegetation.

I kind of bought a red flowered Witch Hazel 'Diane' because I wanted one. I planted it today and now I think I need to find a sunnier spot for it after looking it up online. Once the trees leaf out, what you thought was as least half day sun may be a whole lot less than that. No big deal. I can find a better place for it. Plus, I dug up lots of nice rocks when I planted it in the wrong place.

I will have to be weeding, whacking, yanking and editing in earnest for at least the next four months if I am to maintain any semblance of order, any modicum of control, any notion that what you see out there is indeed a garden.

It helps a lot if I don't think about the fact that all told I have close to three acres of wild cultivation to cover. One weed at a time plus persistence can make a world of difference.

I'm a gardener. I can grow weeds. I can pull weeds.