Choice Morsels

Today's project was cleaning up along this Border Garden Wall. It the marks the border between me and my neighbor, whose  property is higher then mine because it was built for a septic system under it, though a sewer line was put in before the septic system was every used. It was pleasant and partially sunny, so I cleaned up the length of this section, which is about 26 feet plus additional 5 feet of bed with scallop edging.  This part of it has a 18 24 inch bed on top.  It needed raking off, blackberries pulled up, some newspaper laid down and topped with mulch. (I mulch about every two years and in-between, just use mower clippings on top of newspaper, which blocks weeds fairly well.) This bed is dotted with 4 clumps of Asparagus fern, which is nearly the only thing that grows on this bed,  it's so dry and knotty with roots. The reason the Asparagus fern thrives is because it stores it's own water in dozens of little brown bags along it's roots. ...

We've had a Box Turtle visitor in the back yard today. This is the 2nd time we've seen him. He only seems to pop out when it's raining and there's puddles everywhere. He has a pretty light bronze colored shell. Very distinctive.  The first time we saw him, we put out some watermelon rinds for him and he devoured them! Today, he popped out during a thundershower to wander about. We'd saved some rinds in the frig, so I quickly pulled out a couple and dashed out into the pouring rain to put them down for him. He ate both. Clever fellow, he puts a foot on the rind so it won't move around while he's eating it! Today's Garden pic is the plant array along the front walk in front of the climbing roses: Hosta Lillies, Vince, 4 O'clocks and Marigolds. The Vinca planted itself and I love how nice it looks mingled among the Hosta leaves! It looks so natural! The 4 O'clocks and Marigolds I added, though both are from saved seed. I planted one H...