{"id":1454,"date":"2010-10-18T13:38:22","date_gmt":"2010-10-18T20:38:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=1454"},"modified":"2010-11-10T09:11:48","modified_gmt":"2010-11-10T16:11:48","slug":"perennial-labor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/?p=1454","title":{"rendered":"Perennial Labor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There’s a whole to of work to be done in the garden.\u00a0 All the support cages and stakes need to be pulled up and stacked neatly for the winter.\u00a0 The soaker hoses need to be dug up, patched, and rolled into pretty coils.\u00a0 The herbs need to be divided and transplanted.\u00a0 Compost from the barnyard needs to be hauled down and spread in the rows.\u00a0 And if that weren’t enough, more fence posts need to put in for the planned garden expansion and a mini-coop built for the guineas who will be placed in there on bug patrol next spring. So you better believe I have been finding plenty to do other than those miserable chores. I cleaned all the windows and sills and washed and rehung the curtains.\u00a0 Now we can enjoy the cool fall breezes without having to look at the 2 inch high mounds of dead bugs piled against the screens.\u00a0 I got out the spot remover, vigorously scrubbed the year’s accumulated stains on the carpets, and pretended I could no longer see the blotches after I was done.\u00a0 I cleared a space in the goat barn for 2 new rolls of hay and even swept out all the spiderwebs in the rafters.\u00a0 I shredded old bills for the nest boxes.\u00a0 And finally, finally, with much sighing, I gathered my tools and wheelbarrow and headed down the driveway. Then I bypassed the garden and went straight to the perennial bed.\u00a0 Figuring that whatever work was in the perennial bed wasn’t half as bad as the work in the garden.\u00a0 Which may not be an\u00a0 inspirational act of dedication to my flowering friends, but, hey this is a farm, not a Disney movie. My perennials have had a haphazard existence.\u00a0 Sometime after planting them I had another child.\u00a0 Then I got involved with ducks.\u00a0 And chickens.\u00a0 Then I had another child.\u00a0 Pretty soon there were goats.\u00a0 Plus, for some odd reason, we kept adding dogs of all shapes, colors, and sizes to our household.\u00a0 It was like some kind of deep, subversive, subconscious plan to never have any time to do anything with my perennials ever again. But this year I rescued my perennials from their wilderness.\u00a0 For two full days I dug, weeded, and pruned; thereby recovering a lot of beautiful and healthy plants.\u00a0 I should mention I had a lot of help from the children.\u00a0 They trimmed forsythia, carried away thorny briers, dug holes for evergreens, divided and transplanted lilies, and made water runs.\u00a0 All this assistance only cost me $5 each to the three who did not<\/span> crap out on the first day and stomp up to the house, crying all the way (you know who you are).\u00a0 Which comes out to about 50 cents\/hour, but you don’t need to pass that info along to them.\u00a0 If they spent more time on their math homework maybe they could strike a better bargain.\u00a0 Who says you don’ t need math in the real world? Even better than avoiding work in the garden,\u00a0 this project enabled me to expand my landscaping with all the new plant divisions.\u00a0 Which, in turn, gave me more time to avoid the garden because I was busy building new perennial beds.\u00a0 Don’t you love the way this works? I settled on redoing the area in front of our split rail fence.\u00a0 Mowing the grass in that space is awkward at best and still leaves lots of weeds that have to be taken out with the weedeater.\u00a0 As if I have a weedeater.\u00a0 Well, a weedeater that works for more than 5 minutes at a time without belching smoke, stalling, and needing a new string.\u00a0 As if I know how to install a new string.\u00a0 Jeez.\u00a0 Definitely a good space for perennials.\u00a0 Luckily for me, I had enough azaleas and roses to fill it.\u00a0 Check it out:<\/p>\n

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I know what you think you’re thinking:\u00a0 “Goodness, what a lovely bed of azaleas and roses.\u00a0 Did you turn all that soil over by hand?\u00a0 Don’t you deserve to be skinny for all that hard work! ” Wrong, wrong, wrong (except for the turning-over-by-hand and deserve-to-be-skinny part).\u00a0 That picture, my friend, is a recipe for the weeping and gnashing of teeth.\u00a0 Oh, sure the azaleas will blossom in the spring.\u00a0 But before the roses are off to a good start, the wild onions will appear with their nasty spikyness and obnoxious seed-spreading puff balls.\u00a0 The crabgrass will creep in maliciously from the edges of the bed.\u00a0 Common plantain will bound up beside towering stinging nettle.\u00a0 Need I mention the dreaded dandelion and unlucky clover?\u00a0 I didn’t think so. Good thing I had the kids (minus the whiny one) pull up the old carpeting from around the established perennials so it could be used in the new beds.\u00a0 I know you’ve probably considered using carpet in your landscaping, too.\u00a0 I mean, who doesn’t get tired of spending hundreds of dollars on mulch, doing the back-breaking labor of spreading the mulch, and then standing alongside it, moaning in despair, when the grass and weeds grow right through the mulch?\u00a0 Grass and weeds that can’t be mowed be cause they’re on top of 6 inches of mulch.\u00a0 I’m not sure who’s trickier—-the grass and weeds or the companies that sell mulch. But with a bit of old carpeting and the redneck ability to put anything in your front yard without shame, you, too, can keep your plants weed-free.\u00a0 Sure, it’s a transitional process.\u00a0 When I first used carpeting, I insisted to the Other Half that I didn’t care what it looked like.\u00a0 I told all my friends that I didn’t care what it looked like.\u00a0 I told my neighbors I didn’t care what it looked like.\u00a0 (Just kidding about that.\u00a0 My neighbors stopped speaking to me years ago after I got my rooster.)\u00a0 I told myself while I was lying awake at night, tormented by the images of old, dirty carpet around my newly planted coneflower, that I didn’t care what it looked like.\u00a0 But it wasn’t until the coneflower was the only perennial left standing by fall that I started to believe myself.\u00a0 Everything else had been devoured by the grass. So I started wrapping the bases of all my new transplants with carpeting.\u00a0 It’s not forever.\u00a0 In a year or two the plants are large enough to shade their own roots and you end up with a nice clean, weed-free space like the one in between these two forsythias:<\/p>\n

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For mounding or spreading perennials I just pull the carpet back a little each year.\u00a0 This allows for new growth for plants like these wildflowers and juniper:<\/p>\n

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OK, so it isn’t pretty.\u00a0 But it isn’t permanent and I’m way too old to get hung up on pretty.\u00a0 As a matter of fact, this time I noticed that I installed some pieces of carpet face-up and others face-down.\u00a0 And the edges aren’t even perfectly lined up.\u00a0 And it doesn’t bother me at all.\u00a0 I know.\u00a0 Sometimes I even amaze myself with my emotional growth and maturity. In the end I had several new beds filled with potential:<\/p>\n

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(Now before you tell me about carpets releasing toxins into the environment, just relax.\u00a0 We got rid of most of the toxins by inhaling them or absorbing them through our skin during the carpet’s years of use.\u00a0 The only things leaching out of that carpet by now are dog urine and cat vomit.\u00a0 Which should count as a natural, organic soil additive.\u00a0 So, it’s all good.) I admit it isn’t Martha Stewart Living, but to the drivers going 80 mph on our country road, it probably looks just like the burlap that the professionals use.\u00a0 And it goes along just fine with the trailer with a second story addition that’s right down the street (I’d take a picture of that for you but I’m too afraid of what might happen if I get caught sitting in his yard with a camera aimed at his place).\u00a0 Besides, during this project I discovered something else I can do instead of working in the garden: Butchering the spring chickens.\u00a0 Plump, juicy spring chickens who think it’s OK to scratch around the perennials I just finished carefully transplanting and weeding.\u00a0 Here, chick, chick, chick…………<\/p>\n

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There’s a whole to of work to be done in the garden.\u00a0 All the support cages and stakes need to be pulled up and stacked neatly for the winter.\u00a0 The soaker hoses need to be dug up, patched, and rolled into pretty coils.\u00a0 The herbs need to be divided and transplanted.\u00a0 Compost from the barnyard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[54,55,47],"class_list":["post-1454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-flowers","tag-mulch","tag-perennials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1454"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1747,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1454\/revisions\/1747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ruffledfeathersandspilledmilk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}