Earth, Weeds, and Rain

 Another wet week.   I can almost hear things growing.

The Weeds: Bag of weeds #3, but lots more to go

The garden was rototilled and composted today. I didn’t do it. I didn’t think of trying.  Our land is amazingly fertile (our grass grows like the grass on Scotts Grass Seed ads), but it is thoroughly clay.  Clay, when dry, turns into hardpack or lumps so hard that if you tossed one at someone, they’d think you hit them with a rock.  When wet, well, anyone who has molded pottery knows what it’s like.  The other day, a day remarkable for blue sky and warm sunlight (no rain!), Audrey made a sculpture out of some of our clay. For several days the result sat there looking ready to be popped into a kiln. 

Audrey's mud kitten

This morning our landscaper dug holes for the huge plastic sonotubes that will be filled with concrete to support the porch.  He dug down about six feet with his bucket loader and hit not one single stone.  Not even a pebble.  Solid clay, all the way to infinity.  If you can get plants into this stuff they will be quite 

Sonotubes in, shrubs, tree, gone.  Looks worse before it can look better.

content.  Getting them in there, and getting the weeds out, that’s the challenge.  (A horticultural note:  you need to mix the top level of clay with some mulching compost to lighten it.  Hard work nevertheless.)  

We have a garden strip along the south edge of the lawn in which the previous owners apparently grew some corn, pumpkins and sunflowers.  I think it’s a mile and a half long.  That’s how long I figured it was after I spent a morning yanking the most blatant weeds.  The typical dandelion had a root about ten inches long and a spread of about twelve.  You see what I’m up against.

We established (“we” meaning me=ideas, landscaper=the work) another planting bed on the opposite side of the pond.  My thought is to have it ultimately look less like a golf course hazard, less fine, more like a natural pond.  Which it is, technically.  A natural stream,  widened and shaped.  Shrubs had to be moved from the front of the house to make room for the porch, so they are now looking at the house instead of looking out from it.  A river birch will soon be added to the mix.  

Some shrubs newly placed on the far side of the pond.

An evergreen that was moved from a location too near the porch-to-be is now the first occupant of an area south of the front of the driveway where it will soon be joined by six more, an attempt to break up the emptiness of the field and, we hope, help keep the road clear of snowdrifts.

When the rain stops (rumor has it it could be a while) I can start planting.  For the first time ever I’ll be able to have plants that require full sun.  In fact, there will scads of sun.  No more hostas for me!  (Gardeners, you know what I mean.)   So far I have put in three peonies in the patio garden.  (Peonies! Giant, lush, bulbous flowers!)  There was no place for peonies in Lexington.  No room for giant sunflowers or pumpkins or other big things, wide things, tall things.  I’ve got to think big.