Flora-cide

If plants could vocalize, I would be hearing weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth all around me, for we wreaked havoc in our yard this weekend.

The builder was supposed to start working on our house today.  The exterior improvements include a new roof and a new deck built on top of an existing concrete patio.  The patio is at least 25 years old, and for most of that 25 years I have been planting perennials around it - daylilies, phlox, roses, daffodils, monkey grass, four-o-clocks.  As of yesterday morning, our patio beds were riots of color.  By noon, it was all gone, cut down in its prime so that the builder can actually get to the patio.  My granddaughter cheerfully helped with the plant slaughtering.  (I do not know why she felt the bicycle helmet was necessary to the task.) 

Two crape myrtles had to go, too.  One grew near the corner of the patio, and the other grew along the back wall of the house.  In both cases, the limbs over-hung places where the builder will need to work.  We committed "crape murder" and sawed off the limbs with a chain saw.  Those limbs were so straight and sturdy that I saved several of them.  No idea what we'll use them for, possibly tomato stakes, if nothing else.

The back yard looks shockingly bare, except for the heaps of wilting flowers and limbs piled around it.  Hopefully, most of it will be back next year.  I dug up my favorite rose bush and moved it, but I fear that I vandalized the roots so badly that it may not survive. 

And after all that worked, the builder called to report that he had hurt his back and would be going to the doctor today.  He called this afternoon and said that he would be here as soon as he is able. 

All the plants may grow back before he shows up to work!

In the vegetable garden, the peas and beans we planted last week shot out of the ground like they were on steroids, a much healthier-looking stand than the first planting, which may be ready to pick by the end of the week.

We are steadily picking cucumbers, squash, and zucchini.  Hopefully, by the time Nanny's church does the food pantry again, we will have some produce to contribute to it.

Tomato worms are out.  I saw their poop around one of the plants and found two of the little nasties nibbling away.  One other plant has clearly been eaten, but I could not find the culprit.  He may be the size of a hot dog before I find him.

We had some rain late last week.  We had run the tiller over most of the garden a few days earlier, and the rain soaked right in.  When the above-pictured granddaughter and her older sister came to visit on Saturday, they followed me out to the garden.  I saw the older granddaughter eyeing the mud, and before I could warn her, she stepped onto the dirt and promptly sank in past her ankles.  After a momentary panic, she yelled for her sister to join her, and together they tracked up the garden something awful.  I don't think the garden cared, though, and neither did I.