It’s that time of year: ragweed time. Along with many other things, I’m allergic to ragweed and mums. I’m almost to that point where I have to carry a box of kleenex and a bag to put them in with me. Pitiful! With a rare combination of a break in the heat and not having to worry about the kids (today is their first day back in school), I’m out in the garden. I have more to do than time to do it. I need to make up for 2 1/2 weeks of little weeding. Oh dear! It’s bad. Really bad. And I’d done so well, overall, this year. Sigh. My compost pile is going to be quite large before I get done. I’ve also still got plants to plant.
Of the plants we received from the grandparents, I’m more done planting than not. I have 2 mums left and the lily of the valley. I just planted 6 hostas (2 large, 4 small) and 2 hydrangea this morning. My instant shade garden is underway! (The lily of the valley are last on my list of planting priorities). I’ve planted 11 mums, 3 large sedum and some broken of branches of sedum, and 1 rose bush. I was reminded of why I hate planting things as I worked my shovel in an area compacted soil. Yes, the compacted part is my fault. The clay part isn’t. The combination is awful. Truthfully, though, the garden was better than I expected. What was pure clay years ago is now heavy soil rather than clay and clearly healthy. I can’t stick a spade into the soil without finding multiple worms. The chunks of soil I remove when digging are riddled with worm tunnels, too. That is a really good sight. And in spite of having almost no rain this month, I was delighted to see that it was moist under the surface. The plants are looking fine, but it was easy to see why the lack of rain wasn’t bothering them yet.
I’m hoping to get those 2 mums and the lily of the valley planted today. Then, if time permits, I have the plants from my pot ghetto that need to get moved into their real homes. The poor things have been waiting all summer. Many of the plants in that original purchase got planted, but then the heat hit and the rest had to wait.
Once that is done, I’m back to the weeding. Adding so many perennials to the garden beds this year will be a big help next year in that regard. I figure every perennial added is just that much less of the garden where weeds can grow. Unfortunately, my beds are very large, so the weeds still have a lot of real estate to work with.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
Luckily we don’t have ragweed around here but I have vicious memories of growing up around them and just being miserable. My sympathies are with you…
August 19th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
There’s only one thing worse than ragweed, I think, and that is pigweed. It’s a dumb name for a weed. I was amused the first time I heard it. That amusement lasted only until the first sneeze. That stuff is pernicious. Fortunately, we don’t have that up here, as well.