I hear voices

And furthermore about weeds::::



I hear Berta saying, "When that ol' long grass gets goin' you just about never can get rid of it."













And John saying, "I just try to get my ten square feet in every day. Five if it's bad."

Bunch o' five-feet days coming up.

Underplants

Yesterday morning I woke up thinking (1) I would've slept better if I hadn't sampled those candies last night; and (2) In the future I'll try to include pictures of the foot of a tree or shrub so that we can see their underplants.

First up is a Ribes sanguineum "Porky's Pink" underplanted with morning glory, blackberry, long grasses of several sorts, sheep sorrel, and buttercups.

Sheep sorrel is used in alternative medicine in many ways, including as a tumor-reducing anti-cancer agent. It spreads both by seeds and by long, trendril-ly red roots, and can be very hard to eradicate. It is rampant underneath the old azaleas on the north side of the house, a sure sign of soil infertility, which would explain the sorry state of the azalea foliage, about which more later. After I dig up as many of its roots as I can, I'll fertilize, add several inches of Gardner & Bloome's soil-building compost -- you can get it locally from the very nice folks at Brim's -- and water.

Ooo, there's a lovely border of long grass growing atop the West Bank. Look how graceful and tall it grows.

Next, a gorgeous yellow twig dogwood with underplants that include every kind of weed and some lovely calla lily.

And finally, shyly hiding her ragged head behind a Japanese maple, a tall sow thistle that's reached five feet. I guess you could say she's gotten too big for her underplants. (Not to mention that she's toxic.)

Some years (okay, maybe 3 out of 7) I'm the Perfect Gardener and have the whole yard weeded by the first week of March, then spend the rest of the year plucking out whatever I see as I pass, la de dah, so that nothing much ever gets started. Well, I just didn't get out front -- or side -- much this year. As the geologist said about the creek bed: Silt Happens.

I tackle weeds, when I get a round tuit, with a good bit of stretching, Fiskars cushy kneepads, 5-gallon buckets and a bonsai root hook that looks kind of like this (purchased at Portland Nursery.)

And, afterwards, Ultra Soft Plus Doux Kleenex, Loratadine and white wine.

Why-gee!-la

Here is a basic, old-fashioned plant, Weigela florida "Carnival," and there truly is nothing more beautiful in my garden now. It's been on the east side of my house for maybe six years, just peaking out to the south side, so I guess you could say it gets partial sun. Its spreading, arching habit has always been a bit of a problem because it needed something. A wrought-iron arch, say, to be draped upon.

Some people never do anything to these shrubs and they can get honking big (the plants, not the people). Because mine is on the narrow side of the garden I've kept it pruned. Just a few weeks ago I moved the wrought iron arch that you can barely see to this spot, which is just at the entrance to the backyard, and am SO GLAD that for whatever reason I didn't cut the weigela way back earlier this year, as I had thought to do after the December storm. I've woven some of its long, flexible branches through the arch and now I have this gorgeous bower. When the weigela is finished blooming a couple clematis will come along. I've rarely been happier with the way a spot is turning out.

There are at least a dozen weigela varieties, some of them growing only a couple feet tall (like "Minuet" and "Wine and Roses." They're all terrific, I think, it just depends on what you need in what space. They're two-season plants, with no fall color and no great structure to recommend them in winter. But they're just so easy, requiring no more care than you care to give them; and Carnival in particular is so pretty, with its tubular flowers of many shades of pink. It's the ultimate girly-girl shrub.