• Daily life,  Home and garden

    Gardening progress

    Yesterday I got out into the yard and got more done with tall grass and weeds. Actually mostly the grass. In the front yard, there had been a patch that didn’t get mowed last time because the battery ran out. The last time we did garden work it wasn’t a priority and just continued to grow. So I started in the front and finished it for the most part. At one point I ran into the remains of a grass tree that I had forgotten was there. It never grew once we planted it and now it just falls apart. This was one of several plants given to us by a friend who is good with gardening. It’s probably about the fourth one that has failed to survive. Surprisingly, there’s a frangipani in a pot with not a whole lot of soil that is doing quite well. I do intend to add more soil one of these days though. And a gloxinia given to the Scientist when he had surgery last year had come back to life. It was doing well for ages and then it seemed to suddenly die. The pot was still in the kitchen next to our sink. Then I noticed it was growing again. It seems it’s one that dies back regularly and then comes back. I really thought it was dead though. Hurray for us being slow to get rid of dead plants? :D

    After I finished our front yard, I mowed around the back patio before it gets too long again. Then I tackled lots of grass in our side yard. That’s the most neglected part of the yard and there’s still a lot of weedy, long grass to get rid of. The Scientist did do a bit of weed whacking earlier but tried to limit his time outside in hopes of avoiding the awful allergic reaction of his last experience. So I mowed a lot and then I used the weed whacker a bit and then I stopped because we needed to go to the shops before they closed. When I came in I had a bunch of bottlebrush flowers on the back of my head where I had a ponytail. The end result is there’s a much clearer space out there. Once the bottlebrush trees finish flowering I plan to prune back the trees and bushes extensively and get rid of a half-broken limb from one of the trees. Surprisingly it continued to flower and grow despite being connected by a limited bit of tree.

  • Daily life,  Family,  Home and garden

    The family that gardens together?

    Last month we had rain for something like 20-21 day of the month, which is far exceeds our normal September rainfall. Our grass in the backyard grew higher and higher and I despaired as I wasn’t able to go out and mow. Eventually it grew tall enough that mowing was going to have to wait until it had been trimmed down a bit.

    We had some dry and sunny days last week but I found myself down and out with more allergies/cold and tonsillitis until early this week.  Fortunately vertigo wasn’t involved this time but I was pretty knocked out again. Twice in a month…

    Anyway, I finally came out of the haze and felt well enough on Monday. The weather was also in agreement so I bought some new grass clippers and a set of hedge shears and pruners. The grass clippers were the expensive type but worked a lot better for my left handed use than the last set I bought. Just for that alone I think they were worth. The Scientist and I went out into the back yard and tried out the tools. The grass clippers were really a bit too slow for the amount we needed. The Scientist pulled out the line trimmer and managed to cut a lot of the tall grass down. Then it came down to mostly pulling the grass out by hand that was most effective. I was still using the clipper for some place but most of it was weedy winter grass.

    We were making a bit of progress but time was short and rain was expected again on Tuesday. I joked that I should get the boys out to help us and then did just that. Normally I would get some fairly negative responses to such a request but both Game Fanatic and Lego Lover came out without argument and started helping. After about an hour of work, we had managed to clear out a huge area, leaving mostly outer areas of the garden to be dealt with later.

    It was rather nice having all of us out there working towards a goal and getting a bit of enjoyment from it too. I really appreciated the help the boys gave and mostly appreciated how willingly they joined in.

    I’m under no illusion this will become a regular thing but I do hope we can join together in this way again when the need arises.