Gardening in Summer

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We are spending a few hours every day in the garden, working to catch up with what the rains brought us!

Weeds, seedlings of plants that we love in small doses, spring bulb foliage, and general cleanup are the order of the day.

Each morning when the sun comes up around 6:00 we head out, well sprayed against insects, armed with gloves and waterproof shoes. Clippers, shovels,  loppers and large refuse cans accompany us each place we work.

The two of us slog for a few hours before the heat gets to us and every day we make progress.

As we go, we are streamlining our garden beds. We've found that we overplanted some places and tha Mother Nature overplanted for us in other places.

For example, the native, coral honeysuckle vine ... every place the vine touched on the soil a new plant formed. It took half the morning just to prune back that one mini-monster.

We've also found that some things we put in have become too large for their space and will have to be pruned back hard and then maybe removed. The snowball bush is an example there. This year it doubled in size it seems and now we are deciding whether to bring it down to size or remove it.

Each spring and summer this happens. The garden speaks to us differently than last year and we discover its new form and shape for the year ahead.

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