I have been weeding the whole yard like mad lately. Family freinds from Arizona are popping over in a few days and I wan't everything to look halfway put together.

The bed that needed the most work was the front sun bed. It looked horrible (still doesn't look great). The Violas were faded and mildew-y, the Calendula were flopping (the ones planted too close together, not all), and the Oxalis had taken over.
I did that yesterday, as well as got three large buckets full of weeds/trimmings from part of the yard. The day before that I gleaned another three buckets and will likely have five more buckets in the next few days.
CMK

Well I used some back muscle to pick ax out a trench from the gravel driveway to put in a new bed. I then proceeded to kill a very happy rose bush with excess miracle grow. My heart still hurts over that one. It was intended to climb up and through the Staghorn sumac I planted there. Well it may live still but wow does it look dead. I still can't decide on what else to put in there yet.
I also put in a new mini bog in the pond and a rock planter on top of a new waterfall. There are about 800 other "projects" in the works as well.

Ah heck Nell, isn't all gardening about renovating something or other? LOL

Nell, I am on the edge of 'renovating' the New Bed with the lawn mower this fall! I have lost control over it and am thinking of planting a couple of dwarf fruit trees in it and mowing the rest.

I think about "mowing" several beds about this time of year without rain.

I find that digging out what I want to keep, weed whacking the rest to the ground, and covering with a few layers of cardboard plus mulch kills back the weeds in an overrun bed and improves the soil. It won't take out Bermuda grass (my nemesis) but it will loosen up the soil so that its easier to get the Bermuda runners out.

In general we are still converting grass to veggie or flower beds here, not the reverse. I've found that improving the soil makes it much easier to work the beds; and I keep the beds with the good soil tidy where as it is a terrible chore to dig in the clay soil beds and I tend to "let it ride" too long.

When I went out to take a picture of one of the Shastas last night, I was pondering what I was going to do with the bed it was in, digging out what I can (the perennials) put them in the holding bed for the winter sounds like a good idea. Laying cardboard down around the rest of the shrubs should help kill some of the weeds. This bed has a lot of tree roots wandering through it, impossible to dig over.
I have to do a lot of editing in MANY places where things have gotten to big for the space they're in. My problem is, the exact time I should be doing this, something else always comes up keeping me out of the garden.
I've been contemplating telling everyone I just won a 6 month vacation to some far off place, then after stocking up on supplies batten down the hatches and get into some serious gardening. My garden would love that and so would I.
September, come hell or high water I'm going to spend the month in the garden, everything else is going to be put on the back burner. Well that's the plan LOL.

Annette

Must be the time of year. I have a ton of bearded iris threaded through a large bed, and this time of year in the sun and heat the leaves look so ratty I wonder if it's worth how lovely they were in May. I'm planning away what goes and what stays for next year, and waiting for the heat to subside to dig everything out, amend the clay and start again.

I have a very large bed out front - at least 12x30 that needs a complete overhall - perennial sweetpeas, yarrow and weeds have taken over it. I need a good soaking rain then dig up the good plants that are being crowded out and then round-up the rest and lay down cardboard and start from scratch. It is going to become my daylily bed. I have just fallen in love with MaryLu's and will use that as my inspiration. I will also add ornamental grasses to it - gardening is never done. I know in time I will have to scale back but I am not ready to even face that prospect yet. I have seen ladies in their 80's still maintaining large gardens and I plan to do the same as long as the good Lord sees fit to keep me healthy .....

Lynne

CMK, I keep a 2 gallon bucket on the shed porch so it's handy every time I walk through the yard. Some days it only gets filled halfway, others I empty it a couple times a day. I had to break dh of his nightly "wash the bucket & put it back in the shed" routine. His heart was in the right place, but it was driving me crazy.

I "renovated" the kitchen garden this past week. Pulled 17 tomato plants. Kept the Sun Gold cherries for now, but I have replacements waiting to take their place later this month for the fall garden.

Lynne, I have an 85-year-old aunt who still mows her large yard with a tractor. I can't imagine!

-natal, me too! Only I have to use bigger buckets, lol! I didn't know there were so many weeds in my garden! But at least a bucket full of weeds looks better than just little piles everywhere.

My grandma still does a lot of her own yard work, like mowing, hedge-clipping, and some weeding. She is 91 and lives by herself. I hope longevity runs in our family so I can still do that when I am her age!
CMK

Nell: When you say "can't do this any more," do you mean because of age and/or infirmity?

I've put shrubs in my new beds that are tiny now, allowing room for perennials all around them. I figure that by the time decrepitude strikes, the shrubs will be large enough fill those spaces. The perennials around them (that require more attention & effort) will have been moved if I'm still gardening---or can be removed entirely, if I'm not.

Decrepitude, that's the word, Treelover. DH and I have machinery enough to do most anything we need to do now. When he can no longer climb on a tractor and I can no longer dig a hole with hole diggers and bend to pull weeds, maybe the shrubs and trees here will also have filled most spaces. The perimeters can be pulled back in as well.

While I was in town the other day, I talked with Nurse Kim, who is the age of my children. She told me that her mother, fairly recently widowed, has moved into a personal care home. It struck fear into my heart. Her mother's big old farmhouse with beautiful gardens is now on the market. Kim is hopeful that someone will find it to be just what they want.

Nell

Awww...geez. imho, Nurse Kim's Mom moved way too fast. My Mum and I had this chat when my Dad died. I told her that she should stay in their home as long as she liked - I'd make the commute, nag cousins, pay people, to keep the house up. Four and a half years later, she came to live with me, under her own steam, all the way. The people who bought the house, she called them old people, lol, Mum was 81, I said how old are they??!! had sold their home and moved into an apartment. They hated it. They were in their late 80's. Nell, you need to make a pact like this, with children, or someone who will be your executor, a living will. You don't need to be able to do the actual work - be able to point and articulate. That's it. I truly hope that Nurse Kim's Mom does not regret her decision. In some cases, the social aspects of of the care facilities may be a plus for someone who is lonely.

Nancy.

First time I've heard the term 'living will' applied to living arrangements. Here, it is a non-legal term for Advance Directives for Health Care. (Living Will = Who will decide for me when I am unable to speak for myself concerning medical care. I have one of those.)

Thanks for your concern, Nancy. This is not the direction I meant this thread to take.

I was thinking of overgrown areas that need to returned to their prior state or rethought into something different when I started the thread. Sometimes certain garden areas grow too big as our time, needs and abilities change.

Nell

Well, the big stump and the vines fell over in the storm day before yesterday. The stump was totally rotten. Once we cut some of the vines that supported it, it had nowhere to go but down. Here are some pictures.

Look closely to see the rat snake

Well, CMK you are smart to work on your garden before your company comes. I had company recently and I spent my time cleaning, making new drapes, painting the LR. Now my garden is one big weed patch.

But the one area I'm sooooo disappointed in is about three years old. I put in a pond and planted asian jasmine as a ground cover. Every year about this time the weeds take over the entire place and you can't even see the asian jasmine! I am considering using roundup on the entire thing and starting over, but don't know what groundcover I could put there that would block out weeds and take full sun. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to give them! I told DH today I'm tempted to just have gravel there - but oh, how hot would that be!