Sunday, May 9, 2010

Another Day in the Yard

I spent a good part of the day working in the dog's yard, doing major cleaning.  It was a cold and windy day - a sharp front came through last night - and it was a bit too chilly to sit quietly outside.even in the sun, so it helped a lot with my "always keep moving" philosophy.  But in typical gardener's fashion, one job led to another.

My first motivation to get going was because one of my motorcycles is gone! Hooray!  With the big one gone with no effort from me, I'm motivated to get the other disposable one out the gate and gone forever. It opens up a big spot in front of the shed, with just dirt right now. Definitely improves the view from my oasis.

I started by cleaning just the patio. I moved all the furniture off it, swept and then hosed it off. I got inspired and swished bleach all over it and squirted it off, then windexed all the windows.  I contemplated oiling the furniture but that will wait for another day - I had made everything too wet.

Somewhere in there I got into my citrus rehabilitation mode. My oldest Meyer lemon looked dead a couple of weeks ago. It bloomed its head off when first I brought it in last fall, and we assiduously tried to pollinate with a paint brush, but all the blooms dropped off (though they did smell great). It then got covered in spider webs and all the fruit from the previous bloom dried up and dropped off without reaching full size. Then the leaves all dropped off. There were periods in there with insufficient watering, I confess. So it had been reduced to nothing but sticks.  I set it outside a couple of weeks ago.

Now it has a few tiny leaves starting to appear along the dried up sticks. I did some pruning of clearly dead stuff, and some more pruning of crossing interior branches. It is easier to see the structure with no leaves at all.  I rubbed off the remaining spider webs and soaked it in insecticidal soap. I added citrus fertilizer and some additional potting soil, watered it well, and moved to the front corner.  We'll see what happens.

I thought about working on the other two lemon trees but tried to stay focused instead on the yard. I hacked off some big branches from the beech tree along the fence line, just above where the motorcycles have been parked.  It lightens things up, and improves the view into the trees and the park. I did not do a good job of pruning - it was definitely beech butchery.  I cut as much of the english ivy and japanese honeysuckle along the fence and trees as I could get at from inside.  I hosed mildew and mold off one side of the plastic greenhouse. I got the little motorcycles partly cleaned off and out of the yard. I emptied the rain barrel (drained it to the spicebush) and cloroxed the inside before fastening it back up again. I cut the grass (finally!) and cleaned up some twigs and branches from previous pruning.  I raked up some of last fall's debris and got it into the compost heap. I spread some extra fencing to make it taller along the chainlink fence.

Lastly, I spread grass seed on the bare spots. I got lucky last year and spread grass seed back there in March, and then it rained all April and May and it got a good start. Now, this year, to spread it with minimal preparation of the ground, in May, during a very dry run is not likely to pay off so well. But it's worth a shot.  Timing and serendipity lead to good results - maybe I'll get the serendipity this time, at any rate.

This yard has the potential for looking better than it's been for a couple of years. Some of the improvements are permanent, and some are the once or twice a year cleanup types. I'll enjoy going back out there to see what I've done and what a difference it makes.

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