Up the garden path

Okay, strictly speaking not the garden path, but the path from the house to the driveway.

Back in May, this thistle grew to a height of three feet before I finally stopped walking around it and actually pulled it up. 

Having done so, I looked up the path and found myself thinking: Wasn’t this path originally much wider? When exactly did it become so overgrown with weeds? It’s a gravel path. How is it possible for there to be so many weeds?

The answers to these various questions are: (a) yes, (b) slowly over several years and (c) nature – as became clear on closer inspection.

Down on my hands and knees to start the weeding, I realised:

-       Over the winter lots of pine needles fall

-       Lots of rain falls on the dead pine needles, turning them into a mushy pulp

-       Moss grows on the mushy pulp

-       The combination of moss and mushy pulp is all the encouragement many weeds need to sprout.

There you have it. Botany 101.

I could, of course, have simply sprayed the whole path with Roundup. (Oh, ha, ha. As if that would ever happen.)

I managed to weed (and widen) the path for about the first ten feet from the house, then Juneuary set in. Too wet and too cold for weeding.

This week I finally got back to and finished the job.

Quite the difference, n’est-ce pas?  (Roxie is clearly impressed.)

And in semi-path related news (well, the path is in the photo), a reminder while I was eating dinner last night of one of the many reasons I love living on Gabriola. I looked up from my book to see this.

Bambi eating weeds ten feet away from me? Fantastic! (Bambo rampaging through the garden? Not so much.)

Back in the back forty

Time today for a bit more housekeeping. In the house, you ask? No. Never mind the bloody house. No, back in the “back forty” (ha, ha).

I really should have taken a photo a month ago when the daffs were in full bloom all over the back. (One flowering thing bloody Bambo won’t eat.) It looked fabulous. Now it’s time to trim them all back.

One thing, now that I’m looking properly, is growing (and growing) increasingly clear: the weeds didn’t get (or perhaps did not read) the memo. This is a rock garden, featuring heather and lavender. No other vegetation need apply.

Well, except ferns. We like ferns. Wherever they wish to pop up they are very welcome.

As for the rest, they’ve got to go. So I start weeding.

What, I hear you ask, does the broom have to do with anything? It is actually playing quite an important role. It is allowing me to sweep away the bloody pine needles (which, moistened over winter and adhering together like mud, are encouraging weeds to spring up apparently out of nowhere).

Two hours later, much better. There’s still a considerable amount to do back here, but I think it’s time to kick Stella off the zero gravity chair, make a cup of tea and read the paper.

For now, job done.