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The endlessness of plants
Jan. 6th, 2019 03:55 pmIt's a truth universally acknowledged that improving one part of a thing immediately throws all the other neglected pieces into sharper relief. It's also a truth universally acknowledged that few things go right the first time around.
The orchid vine and the skyvine have been lashed to the tree they're meant to climb--it turns out it's Squirrel Season, and the chinaberry is a main rodent thoroughfare, so the plants aren't going to be able to swing this by themselves. The main rain barrel's new downspout meant that, even though I got on the roof and cleaned the hell out of the gutters, a torrential downpour (half an inch in half an hour) a few days ago washed enough garbage into the barrel that the spigot is clogged. I'll have to take the whole thing down to clean it out and flush it, which isn't what I wanted to do with next weekend, but it's a problem that happens.
I spent yesterday tearing apart and cleaning the front porch. Everything is now swept, mopped, and tidied up. I scrubbed down the front door and brushed away the cobwebs and scraped off the super-old muddauber nests. It now has a few bits of new furniture that should help keep things sorted instead of just kind of piled up together, and I got enough things planted that there's now space for the old furniture to be spread out in a more useful way. I got the last of the seeds I ordered a few months back planted--with any luck I'll see some sprouts in the next two or three weeks.
The baby longan trees have been moved to bigger pots, the feral mango tree that's never done anything but look shitty has been taken down to a stump, and I have a new compost bin picked out. I've picked out where I want to put the last few plants going in the ground before the weather warms up, so I'll be prepping those this week. I might remulch around one of the old planters if I get really ambitious, because weeds suck and know it's practically impossible to get the weedeater close enough to that planter to take them out.
I'm feeling pretty good about getting things as far along as they are, and everything definitely looks a lot less of a higgledy-piggledy mess scattered around the yard. If I can just maintain a bit of the momentum going forward, I should be able to get it to the point where it's not difficult to keep up with over the summer when the weather's less cooperative.
The orchid vine and the skyvine have been lashed to the tree they're meant to climb--it turns out it's Squirrel Season, and the chinaberry is a main rodent thoroughfare, so the plants aren't going to be able to swing this by themselves. The main rain barrel's new downspout meant that, even though I got on the roof and cleaned the hell out of the gutters, a torrential downpour (half an inch in half an hour) a few days ago washed enough garbage into the barrel that the spigot is clogged. I'll have to take the whole thing down to clean it out and flush it, which isn't what I wanted to do with next weekend, but it's a problem that happens.
I spent yesterday tearing apart and cleaning the front porch. Everything is now swept, mopped, and tidied up. I scrubbed down the front door and brushed away the cobwebs and scraped off the super-old muddauber nests. It now has a few bits of new furniture that should help keep things sorted instead of just kind of piled up together, and I got enough things planted that there's now space for the old furniture to be spread out in a more useful way. I got the last of the seeds I ordered a few months back planted--with any luck I'll see some sprouts in the next two or three weeks.
The baby longan trees have been moved to bigger pots, the feral mango tree that's never done anything but look shitty has been taken down to a stump, and I have a new compost bin picked out. I've picked out where I want to put the last few plants going in the ground before the weather warms up, so I'll be prepping those this week. I might remulch around one of the old planters if I get really ambitious, because weeds suck and know it's practically impossible to get the weedeater close enough to that planter to take them out.
I'm feeling pretty good about getting things as far along as they are, and everything definitely looks a lot less of a higgledy-piggledy mess scattered around the yard. If I can just maintain a bit of the momentum going forward, I should be able to get it to the point where it's not difficult to keep up with over the summer when the weather's less cooperative.
