Weeds Weeds, Nothing But Weeds!

Photos are of piles of the "plants whose virtues haven't been discovered yet."...AKA weeds. This year they seemed loaded with some kind of growth hormone that when plant is picked, a response is triggered and 5 more grow back the next day!

This exercise in futility is for an upcoming garden tour we are hosting. The dates are June 25 and 26, 2011. If spring would come to the Puget Sound then things will really start to pop (including the weeds as well).

The gardens won't be perfection (can or should gardens ever be?) but the place will be inspiring. The gardens are good examples of what can be done when you have more imagination than money, and more heart than time.

Fernwood Studio (a professional artist studio) and TheRabbitHole (flea market treasures) will be open and available for viewing as well. These are two of the enterprises of my home-based business, Over the Top.

My Buttercups Runneth Over

While I intend to focus my blog mostly on business topics, I am proud of this recent accomplishment-it's almost a contender for the "Weeding Hall of Fame." And shouldn't we celebrate our accomplishments whenever possible? There were two areas in the garden that were being overtaken by buttercups and lamium. With a tremendous amount of pulling, pulling, and more pulling, most every stem has been removed.The photo doesn't do the size of the piles justice- they were as big as Godzilla (or it feels like they should have been). The stairs and stones under the upper deck had been totally covered with the mucho invasive plants. The next phase is to lay down landscape cloth into the steps and back-fill with crushed black basalt. While I pulled, my "fertile" brain drifted to thoughts which I will dub, "Garden Musings."

* Who needs the gym when there are buttercups?
* Cyndy, garden gloves, and the Nijiri Gama tool-it's a beautiful thing (it's a
Japanese tool that does everything-my favorite!).
* A loaf of bread, a jug of wine on a picnic blanket in a field of buttercups-as
long as it is YOUR field.
* What's the childhood thing about rubbing a buttercup under your chin?
Indicates true love? Lifelong happiness? A gardener to show up?
* Where are my goats now that I really need them? Yes, I had a pair of goats once.
* Pulling weeds on your knees really is a humbling experience.

That's it for now. When rockwork is finished, I'll post the photo. Then you can be duly impressed, if you aren't already. "I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds around neck." Whoever said that must have pulled buttercups.
May your garden almost be weed-free (refer to last entry in "Musings" above).