Saturday, April 14, 2012

A Job Well Done!


Hi there everyone, welcome to the new blog! I’m so happy you decided to follow me and continue reading my posts. It was just time for a move to a new location. Change is good and I’m embracing it these days.

I’ve been busy as a little bee in the garden trying to catch things up from the neglect it’s received the past two years. It has actually been 4 years since some the beds had mulch put in them so I thought that would be as good a place as any to start. Really what I wanted to do was to start buying plants to fill the holes where the heat killed so many things the past two seasons. The logical part of me says you need to put down new mulch to help conserve water, protect the plant roots and make the beds look better. So the mulch won out. I’ve just got to remember I can’t do it all at once and I have limited financial resources so I just have to do a little at the time. Before, all my extra funds were put into the garden, now a BIG chunk of them is sitting in the driveway with black racing stripes and another portion is used being a social butterfly. :0)

I like to use the mini pine nuggets that are put out by a company named Evergreen. You can find them at Lowes. It’s inexpensive and it good mulch. When they delivered it to the house it was stacked so high on the pallet I had to get a ladder from the guy next door just to get the top bags off. I was so excited to get started. This is something that has needed to be done for a long time now. As soon as the mulch was delivered I was ready to get going.

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I had to take the wheel barrow to put some air in the tire. It’s been sitting for a couple of years so it was just as flat as it could be. I learned a long time ago the value of one of these things in the garden.

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I managed to get about half the garden done the first day and let me tell you, I was whooped! Even using a wheel barrow it was hard work. I put out about 1500 pounds and I said okay it’s time to stop. I was stumbling all over myself and starting to trip! I poured out a half a bag in the center bed and that was all she wrote. But you know what? That’s really a great feeling, to be totally exhausted from hard work and know you’ve done a good job.

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Look how much better the lines of the paths pop with new mulch in the beds. Before I put in the new mulch I also retrenched about 95 percent of the borders. That really helped the appearance too. Seeing how good everything looked the next morning I was ready to get started again.

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I made a pretty good dent in this pallet for the first day. Don’t you think? The good thing about it being so high was I didn’t have to lift those heavy wet bags, I just had to drag them off the stack. That saved my back a lot of work.

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By the second day I had a system figured out and things started moving much faster. I figured out it was much easier to start on the outside of the beds and work inward verses from the center out. Too bad I couldn’t figure that out a little earlier in the day the previous morning.

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Yaaaaaaaaaaay!!!!! An empty pallet! I never would have dreamed that my back would have held up for me to move literally thousands of pounds of mulch in two days by myself. That back surgeon did a really good job on me. Don’t worry though, I don’t act carelessly, I’m very cautious with my back.

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Things look a hundred times better in the garden now, just from new mulch. I have several bare spots in the paths that need to grow back in from an over growth of weeds the past two years. But I’ve been spraying and I’m going to fertilize and I think I have the weeds on their way out. I’ll have beautiful grass again in no time.

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12 comments:

  1. Hello Randy,

    What a wonderful new blog you have here! Had I known I would have brought a “Blog Warming” present with me! And the first picture made me swoon, that is a sweet looking stack of mulch. It is only surpassed by the pictures of it having been applied. Truly you have given you blog an appropriate name, for you really have a Southern Eden going on, bravo!!! I fear you may have raised the neighborhood “Rage & Envy Quotient” exponentially. So just when will you be contracting the garden out for weddings? Well if not the ceremony at lest for portraiture, just a thought.

    Loving the new blog, and as always, love that garden. Take care. – gary

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  2. So nice that you wrote the web address of your new blog! The new one is nice and interesting too.
    My English is not very good so did I understand correctly that some of your flowers have been killed by the heat (Very high temperatures?)? The world is really amazing - so many different climatic conditions! Flowers in my garden mostly will be killed by freezing cold. If there is less than 50cm-s of snow but temperatures are -25 till -35 degrees then it could be destructive for flowers (winters 2010, 2011 were very cold).

    I hope I can very soon read about your new "adventures" in your wonderful garden!

    And it is amazing that although you live in the southern part of North-America and I live in the northern part of Europe there are so many flowers of the same species!

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  3. Hi Randy, glad to see your new blog is up. What a load of mulch! I know what you mean about working so hard and being exhausted but it feels so rewarding. You've done an awesome job. Everything looks fantastic.

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  4. Looking great--your garden and your new blog. I updated my blogroll.

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  5. Love your landscape design, curves, scalloped edges......going to update my bloglist so I don't get too far behind here.

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  6. I'm so happy to see all of you here! I'm so thankful for your continued support and the fact you take the time to read my blog! I'm sending out a warm southern hug to all of you!

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  7. A hundred times better for sure. Is your back okay enough to come and do mine now??:)

    I've updated the link on my blog page to your new blog.

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  8. Everything is beautiful! Love your edging and your grass path.

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  9. Nothing refreshes a garden like a new blanket of mulch. It looks wonderful. Worth all the work, yes?

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  10. I just found your blog. What a lovely garden you have. I'll come back lots to enjoy your beautiful designs.

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    Replies
    1. Meta,
      If you look in the top left corner you will see the link to my old blog. My garden is only 4 years old and the entire process is on that blog. Check it out if you like. :0)

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