Time to Toil

It's that time of year again when every day, weather permitting, is spent working in my flower gardens. 

I don't know if it is because of the mild winter that we had, but it seems that every weed seed has germinated.   My flower beds are a jungle of weeds.  Because I have so many perennials, weeding is a slow, tedious process in which I must carefully pick out the bad growth (trying to pull each weed out by the roots).  Slowly my garden is beginning to emerge from its weedy cocoon.

The shade garden is almost complete.

This flower bed is filled with perennials, mainly a variety of hostas, ferns, astilbe, loosestrife, and filipendula.  I will not have to plant any annuals in this bed.  I will fill in the few bare spots with some more perennials.  I have been spraying my hostas with deer repellant, because the deer view my garden as a giant salad bar.

I can remember when I could work in the garden from morning to dusk.  Now, after four hours of work, my body protests and says that it is time to go inside.  When I look at how much remains to be done I despair.  But then I think of the days when I was teaching.  Back then I didn't have time to start gardening until Memorial Day weekend.  When I look at it that way, I realize that I have already accomplished a lot.

Today it is raining, so I have a day of rest!