Hours of Invisible Work

The thing about weeding is that unless you saw it beforehand, how would you know what actually happened? I spent much of this morning and afternoon weeding -- half-filled the city green bin with weeds -- and you can hardly tell, except of course it looks tidier than it did.

Yesterday afternoon we met a friend at Annie's and bought a bunch of plants (twenty!), and made a quick dash to Berkeley Hort where I bought a Giant Chain Fern, a California native that gets to be 6-8' tall. I can't wait. So today I had to plant all that stuff.

Here they are sitting in the driveway, waiting for me to finish my weeding.

The thing is, I'm doing my level best to hold the ground I've weeded of Bermuda grass. I spent most of my time up in the front removing new shoots springing up in the natives bed and among the roses.

And I spent all yesterday morning weeding in the back, too, and this morning it was hard to tell what I had done. It's simply astounding the number of weeds that show up. Well, I have to stay on top of it or I will be giving the garden back to the weeds.

I did decide to start planting along the side of the driveway today. So far there are very few weeds there, and no Bermuda grass, so I want to get it planted and filled up before the invaders show up. I put my little pelargonium there, plus a Silene asterias that I got at Annie's.

One piece of good news today was the discovery that the five-fingered fern is still alive. I was pulling out Bermuda grass along the fern walk when I noticed this tiny blotch of green under there: a frond unfurling. There are a few more out of view in this terrible photo, as well. I'm glad I didn't pull it out a few weeks ago.

The garden is coming along nicely, although it does seem like I can throw $100 in plants at it regularly and nothing seems to change. I alternate between feeling like there's not enough room for me to squeeze in everything I want, and feeling like there's so much room I will never be able to maintain it myself, much less plant it all out.

Technorati Tags: gardening, plants, springtime

posted by ayse on 04/23/06