The Ant under the Leaf

His world can turn upside

down so easily.  It happened

again yesterday when a 

human hand lifted the mat

of dried ash and crocus leaves

covering his home, clearing

the small area for a young

penstemon plant.

Swarming, they were

allowed to relocate

with their newborn under

the leaf debris a little further

away, as no mist drifted down

from the heavens freezing them

into withering curled up corpses.

He was lucky.

Of course, he doesn't perceive

it that way.  He was exposed

and defied the odds of death

over life one more day.

Night comes and passes, and

the empty patch of ground lays bare, 

as he hides seven ash leaves over

in his new home.

The sun moves low in the afternoon sky,

then hands dig a hole where he had

lived the day before, and fill it

with life of a different sort.  

Magical rain falls only upon the plant,

then all is quiet.  Tomorrow in the 

noon day sun, after the dew drops have

vaporized, he will investigate.

Penstemon

Dancing to a different song

Gone with the old - in with the new

Gardens Re-Invented

Heaven on Earth

Time

to 

feed

the

cats.

Bye!

BLAST ZONE

into

my

world

of

mastering

the 

garden

Bearded iris...what's not to love about them?  I do nothing except cut down the flower stalks when blooming has finished.  Yard is on maximum biodiversity mode which prevents thrips becoming a problem, and the tubers lay across the top of the ground as the babies spread across the arid landscape ruling out rot as an issue.

I never cut down leaves or clean up dead leaves like all the instructions command one to do for a perfect bearded iris environment, and they multiply and multiply and multiply everything else right out of existence by creating a tight web of tubers covering all exposed ground fairly solidly.  If ignored, they become detrimental to the yards diversity.

It appears I ignored them maybe just one measly year too long :(

Pick ax, shovel, and my handy dandy extra-large screw driver weed extractor in hand, I melted away in above 90 degree humidity to fill up six bags with weedy trash and chopped up bearded iris parts.  Saved nine baby plants to start all over again, thought about it for a few seconds, and then popped them into the trash bag also.  I've zoned out on bearded iris this year.  A small patch still exists skirting the blueberry bed, but I can just yank them out of that healthy soil super easy, and yank I did to shrink the colony to one-third its previous size.

Their covering capability was exploited to the max in the back yard corner garden bed to hopefully prevent further migration of those fragrant weedy greens from the neighbor's quarter acre that looked so sweet the first year and morphed into a pop-up everywhere nightmare the second year forever more.

Bearded iris, Round-Up and Weed-B-Gone keep me happy with my neighbor's fence line that has become a no-mow zone thanks to their relentless appetite for junk, junk, and more junk piled along that area. They haven't owned a working lawn mower for years.  It's just weed whacker mama out there once in a blue moon, and nowhere-in-sight daddy nowhere in sight.

after

I

rest

up

a

bit

...not for the faint of heart, and my heart appears to be sliding to the fainting side at 150 MPH this summer.  Hard to get rid of, I'm told...very, very hard to get rid of.  Husband digs new ones out every year and they laugh in his face popping back up in two weeks flat.  I'm calculating how much destruction will totally wipe them out while leaving the healthy environment still in tack.

Pardon me

while I consult

with

 my fellow

Master Gardeners

on 

this 

problem