Thursday, May 26, 2005

cleaning up

As part of an auction item that we donated for our upcoming choir trip, a friend and I ended up pruning and trimming shrubs and cleaning out beds in the purchaser's backyard garden last night. This is the second time we have done this, and it reminds me once again that many folk have fear at touching their plants and doing the ordinary maintenance to keep the family yard from looking like the Addams Family garden.

This particular yard had lots of poison ivy, but we had identified much it for the owner a few days earlier and she had applied poison to start its decline. As I start cutting and pruning, I try to explain what we are doing in ways that introduces the homeowner to the plant.

I've got another couple of hours to finish the job. The first time we did this kind of service, we were asked to do it in July, amid great heat and bugs. In the cool days we currently find ourselves in, the bugs haven't shown up yet and there wasn't much sweating.

2 comments:

lemming said...

Our J2A class is coming by on Saturday to do much teh same. One of them has a mother who gardens and is happy to supervise and direct their movements.

Don said...

lemming -- sounds great. Will you get weeding done? Planting?