I Tried To Be Good….But I did Lie to You…

There are actually 41 Poppies  – –

I got the carefully watched and left undisturbed wild poppy area weeded today.

(to the internal tune of Count Dracula, from Sesame Street, chanting,

“1, I count One Poppy! 2, I count… “

And then heard him exclaim,

“WTH!?! You said the highest I had to count to was 12!  You want 41 now?  We must count winks then….”)

After clearing out the tall native grass, I counted each existing plant and the picture doesn’t capture all of them, BUT, I have more wild poppies than I previously thought or reported to you:

Remember when that area looked like this?:

Before – Over 20 wild poppies this year – once I carefully clip all the grass away, I may just discover more!

Now, it Looks Like –

After- Hope I didn’t weed native grasses so much that I deprived Poppies of support and late spring snow protection!

Finally, another spot soon to be finished…

The above picture is of an area located right in between the iris/rhubarb bed:

To the west

and the soapweed/tulip/daylilly area…

To the East

After 3 years of having a slowly diminishing pile of sand/fine gravel mix,

(delivered by my generous neighbor for the long ago scrapped first plan of what to do right next to the house….)

I’ve decided to level it out over the entire area (over the shorn heads of native grass and layers of newspaper) nestled between the two finished areas, re-arrange the rocks to encase the entire area, top off with quite a few inches of dirt/compost mix and the new home for Amaranth and Wild Poppies will be complete.

Funny how this all came about so well without me planning it on purpose-

I was surprised to discover the length of the two existing areas, cleaned and neatened yards and months apart, actually line up almost perfectly, so the rock border to enclose everything won’t look like I was tipsy when I laid it out..  🙂

I do Confess to Having an Uneasy Conscience…

…over clearing out that area of native grass – not sure exactly what kind of grass it is, but it’s hardy, has deep roots that are aerating the soil, grows fairly tall, in amongst other plants, but doesn’t seem bent on strangling its’ neighbors –

If it could be happy only reaching three or four inches in full height, I would leave it alone and cherish the ground cover that requires no mowing.

The future will tell if Mother Nature is pleased with my weeding efforts or not.

**********

Yes, I did mislead you about how many poppies there were  – but not on purpose –

If you sue me for leading you astray in my amateur-half-arsed gardening attempts – have fun with that –

You can’t get blood from a turnip, but if all goes well, you can safely ask for your ‘jury awarded compensation’ to be paid in turnips, over the next 50 years….

🙂