Gardening Success!

It took two good days of two person gardening, but our front yard now officially looks like it belongs to real people. It took 60 bales of pine needles to cover the whole area (and we probably could have used 70, coverage is a little thin in some areas). All the privet hedges got planted, weeds (including two saplings) got pulled, over all a great success.

Don't get me wrong, it still needs work. We need to find something to replace the monkey grass down at the bottom of the hill, where it is not doing so well in 'the swamp'. We're testing out two small 'willow' shrubs to see how they fare in that area. The azaleas are questionable. And I am currently on the war path against inchworms in my shrubs. If they want to eat the trees or the weeds, fine. I'd even be ok with them eating the azaleas. But not my new to-be  hedge. A sparing and localized treatment of pesticide seems to have deterred them for the moment. I don't like using pesticide, but I also don't like watching tiny worms eat a fairly substantial investment in time and money. I'm using it as a stopgap until I can get my hands on some Bt pesticide--kills any insect that eats my leaves, none that don't, harmless to non-bugs and becomes inert after a week of sunshine.

In other news, I've learned that gardening and in general being outside in my yard right now requires some clever use of scarves. Bandanas make for great improvised dust masks when spreading pine needles...

And makes me look like classical music loving old-west bandit

And my old tichels make for great inchworm barriers. There is few things more creepy than an inchworm in my hair.

Tichels--really really big bandanas with prettier patterns

I'm fairly certain I look a bit out of place in my neighborhood with it on, but that's nothing new, and its worth it to know there are no inchworms landing in my hair.

Overall, a successful weekend.