Every little bit helps

That’s what I tell myself about anything I do in the garden. Since my knee surgery over a year ago, my garden activity has been pretty limited. This was understandable for the first several months after surgery since it was hard to get up and down. Now that my knee is so much better, that is less the issue and it’s more  a matter of being out of the habit of doing anything.

Yesterday I went outside and realised there was need to clean up dog messes so I got my little spade and an old plant container to get around the yard quickly. That took a while but then I found myself pulling out weedy grass from around bushes. All the shrubs along the back side of the house have been overgrown with couch grass so it required a bit of work. I abandoned my original task (which was mostly done anyway) and devoted most of the remaining time to clearing out that mess in the shrubs. The worst place is right up against the house as the grass’ roots run rather deep and I have to really rip the stuff out. On a positive note that grass has often died so it isn’t always resistant to my efforts. I managed to get most of that cleared out and also pulled up quite a few weeds that have sprung up in the back yard. It’s always the nastiest ones that seem to grow so quickly too. Of course I was doing all this without gloves and my hands are now feeling a bit battered from the abuse.  The good part is there is a small area that looks a lot better. I’m hoping to go off to a nursery in a local shop today to search for one more plant to replace one that died well over a year ago. The stake holding it up was still there but evidence of the plant is long gone.