Stones and Spring Cleanup

Spring cleanup was done this past week and the 15 trees were cut. Everything looks good.

Saturday, the gravel and stone deliveries came and we were able to finish re-doing the end of the garden bed with the re-curved stone retaining wall and expanded gravel area. As planned, we re-curved the end of the one bed, added a layer of stone to the entire right side of the pathway, and added to parts of the left side of the pathway. But as it turns out, a pallet of stone is more than you'd think and with still more left over, we decided to put down an edging of stone along the front of the other garden bed as well. Phew. Lots of stone moved around. Body hurts. It was like a giant jigsaw puzzle, fitting the stones together nicely. As for the gravel left over after expanding the end of the path, we filled in a few spots of the driveway as planned and then just spread out the rest across the center of the driveway. The 1.5-2 yrds was definitely much more than we needed, but not a big deal. The new stuff was wet when delivered and after it dried it was covered with a coat of white dust so it really stuck out where we spread the new gravel, but I think it will blend just fine once we get a good rain and rinse it all off.

This past Thursday I was in NJ and saw all sorts of Forsythia blooming along rt 17. And this weekend, also everywhere while driving around town in EH. From the wild and rambling kind to the more upright kinds. Individual ones, and massed ones. Really pretty and definitely a nice pop of color from all the shades of brown.

Crocuses were out even more and while they looked so nice, I could see the other bulbs were not fitting up through the wire "lids" I had made. One corner was getting pushed up out of the ground by bulbs growing up underneath. So I sucked it up and decided to take on the tedious task of carefully cutting off the wires. As I was digging and snipping, I could see the hyacinths with their big flower clusters were clearly not fitting through, and while some daffs seemed to be fitting, many daffs and tulips were also stuck. Did some damage, but time will tell if I really screwed it all up.

Oh - and the weed spray last weekend did not work - at all. They're still everywhere and they don't even look the slightest bit wilted. Also saw a full fledged dandelion w 2 yellow flowers. Ugh, didn't have time this weekend but next weekend I really need to get them under control. Maybe I'll try the other spray or just go to town pulling them all out. Might need a bag of soil to fill in all those divots.