It's all Green

Hmmmm....seems like there is a lot of green going on in the yard.  This big healthy plant is horseradish that comes back every year.  It's most prolific in the shade of my apple tree.  

Die, comfrey, die!

This is the last (I hope) of the comfrey invasion that I've been battling for several years. Yes, I welcomed comfrey - nay - asked for comfrey to join my plants, scoffing at my friend's warning that comfrey is a guest that will not willingly leave.

The plant is big and beautiful and perhaps the greediest water hog that has ever lived in my yard. Not only that, when there isn't enough water in this arid climate, Her Hugeness wilts as if to announce to passers-by what an awful garden-tender I am.

I have dug up the big black roots again and again. I've covered them with weed barrier and inches of mulch. I've even put pavers on top of them to try to get them to go away. Now all I have left are these little shoots and I'll stay after them until they are gone. Maybe I'll go so far as to eat them!

Lavender and Sage

Today we have another gloomy-ish cool day, though not as wintery as in the mountains, from what I hear. I wandered around the yard noting the pansies in the ground, the new sprouts of turnips, carrots, radishes and peas that are up & dreaming up projects for the Yard Man to do before the our seasonal rush hits. Then I remembered: "Trim back the sage and lavender!" Yes, during one of my extended link-clicking adventures throughout the garden world online, I ran into a post about cutting back lavender and yes, I think sage was mentioned.

Just what I needed, a short project that will help some plants and wouldn't keep me out in the the cold too long. I appreciated the person who wrote the article (and would have credited him if I remembered who he was) and had the realization that I need to cultivate my plants more. The realization changed my viewpoint a bit from 'gardening when I feel like it' to gardening as if it really made a difference to the plants. I understood conceptually the word 'cultivate' more, as in 'fostering, caring for, being devoted to something'.

So thanks to whoever inspired me into my woody bushes got me to clear out the underbrush.