Killing Spree

I spent a week killing Bermuda grass with Roundup. This is my only non-organic method in the garden, and it is absolutely essential, as anybody who is infested with Bermuda grass will tell you. The stuff can grow through tarmac.

So I sprayed the grass (twice!) and then today I took a shovel and dug out the dead clumps. Some are not-so-dead because they were under or around plants I wanted to keep, but for the most part the Roundup did its job and killed the invader. I made basically a 3-foot-tall pile of dead grass, so I'm pretty happy with the results. I still have a large area to dig out, and there is the ongoing brick edging project, but this was pretty good progress.

Then, with some help from our neighbor's grandkids, I planted up one side of the sidewalk garden. (I planted, they watered the plants very enthusiastically.)

That's a mix of taller, xeric plants (the Douglas iris is looking a little rough, but it is dormant right now and it spent the summer in a container), and low ground covers. The plants, apart from the Douglas iris, came from my recent trip to Annie's Annuals. I also ordered a couple of interesting ground covers for the other side online (from High Country Gardens, which is one of my go-to online nurseries), and they should be here next week, by which time I hope to have finished the digging portions of this project.

A couple people emailed asking how letting the chickens into the yard is going. (The question was phrased along the lines of "how much stuff have those chickens destroyed since you let them out?")

The chickens are really loving it, for certain. They pretty much never hang out in their yard (it is utterly devoid of vegetation, so this is not too surprising). Carole is almost always completely filthy, which means she is a happy chicken (the other girls seem to actually groom themselves, so they are cleaner-looking). And the egg yolks have gotten even more orange and wonderful. So far they have not destroyed anything, either, apart from some weeds that were growing under the Buddleias.

Win-win, I think.

posted by ayse on 09/14/11