Garden Pic Wednesday: Pampas Trimming & Indoor Petunias!

It's nice outside today. Sunny. Clear. Mildly cool.
It's been so bleak and cold up to now, I haven't wanted go outside. But there's outside stuff that needs doing--one being cutting all my pampas grass back to their base. 

But today, being so nice, I headed out and whacked down the first of 5 clumps that need cutting back. Pampas is messy to cut. It's full of dry paper peels that like to blow everywhere and the blades are serrated on both edges. It's pretty stuff, but it's mean, make no mistake about that. I never walk away without at least one cut, even with long-sleeves & gloves.

Because the front pair of pampas border my neighbors yard, I try to keep the process relatively neat. It was one of those I worked on today. Having tried various methods for cutting it back, I've found what works best is just hand-clipping the canes in small bunches, 5 or 6 at time, then folding them a couple times and wrapping around the folds with the blades to secure the bundle, which I can easily stuff into a yard trash bag without it fluffing out every which way.
 Believe me, left loose the stuff simply will not go into a bag and stay there.

I have a spring bulb pot garden that sits in the bed adjacent to that pampas and because paper wasps attached a nest to it last year, today I wiped the outside of the pot down with Avon Skin So Soft bath oil to prevent that.
It's also good to use on hummingbird feeds around the base to keep bees out, which I did last year and it worked. Who knew?

Today's Garden Pic of the Day was actually taken inside: on those freezing icy days my red petunia I have inside decided to bloom:

The blooms aren't as big as they would be outside, but still, it was a  little winter cheer. 

Come back tomorrow for Mama Kat!