How does your garden grow?

This day of staycation is brought to you by the letter G - for gardening!.

It started with a little errand running, almost all gardening related. I got new pruners (the last pair are lost, but I'm certain they will turn up now that I have new ones), a new hose head (old one was spraying out of spots it shouldn't) and a sprinkler (the poor lawn is dying - literally).

However, I hid inside and knit for the afternoon until it got cool enough to actually get out in the garden. (And even then, I had to take a run through the sprinkler when I was done.)

Long-time readers will recall that I normally chop back the wild roses that grow at the front of my house every spring. This spring however, I didn't get to them. They didn't take over as much as I expected, but they were starting to encroach on the front steps and the side hedge, so I gave them a little trim. (The side hedge could use a trim too -but I'd need a ladder and that's not in the budget)

However, the bulk of the gardening was devoted to removing the giant thistle (and I mean giant - about seven feet tall) that was growing up in the middle of them, as well as other weeds.

It's a little more tame than it was. You'll notice there's a lot less bloomage than there was in the in the pic with Mopar the other day - the result of two weeks with little to no rain. I'm pretty sure these roses could survive a nuclear blast, but they don't bloom well when there is no rain. The grass also looks horrid, but hopefully my new sprinkler will help.

I'm actually seriously considering cutting the roses right back this fall and then removing them completely. I absolutely love the blooms, but they are such a pain to work around. Weeding them is a nightmare - and in that back corner under the hydro metre, there's the prettiest white peony bush that is almost completely hidden. In the spring, there's also an abundance of crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, and daffodils - but you can't really see them. I'd love to take these out and put in a couple of tamer tea roses

While the roses didn't get a full haircut this year, I still managed a nice pile of clippings.

This pile includes the giant thistle, but it's mostly some crazy viney weed that had completely covered the brown utility box behind the pile, as well as a good chunk of the fence. It's not poison ivy, though it looks very similar (I did lots of research on it last year before I started ripping it up in the fall). The neighbour on the other side of the fence had tonnes of it, but it never came over the fence. Then new people moved in the house, and quite rightful, they ripped it all out to put in some proper gardens.

However, since then, it seems to think it can take refuge in my yard! The new pruners made short work of it though.

So now, the lawn is watered, the weeds are ripped, and the roses are under control - I think it's time to get back to the knitting needles!