{"id":2831,"date":"2019-08-26T07:07:59","date_gmt":"2019-08-26T15:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/?p=2831"},"modified":"2019-08-26T07:10:11","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T15:10:11","slug":"weedsong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/weedsong\/","title":{"rendered":"Weedsong"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Crabgrass--Otherwise<\/a>
Crabgrass–Otherwise known as “nemesis”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, is one of my favorite garden destinations.\u00a0 For the price of admission, you can spend a day wallowing in world class horticultural splendor and, unless you venture into the less cultivated areas, you will never see weeds.\u00a0 The beds are meticulously tended and if any weed dares to raise its head, it is plucked out of the ground by a vigilant staff person.<\/p>\n

Some days I wish that my garden were more like Longwood.<\/p>\n

Other days, however, I am grateful for my weeds, from the first onion grass in spring, through the tenacious crabgrass of summer and then, full circle, back to onion grass in late fall.\u00a0 When you are bored, frustrated, or otherwise out of sorts, there is nothing like weeding out a bed or corner to bring a sense of accomplishment.\u00a0 I don\u2019t even mind weeding in the dog days of summer, when the heat is scorching and the baked earth hesitates to give up even shallow-rooted weeds.\u00a0 Of course, if the temperature is above 85 degrees Fahrenheit, I confine my weeding to early morning, early evening, or ten minute increments at other times of the day.<\/p>\n

It is amazing what a difference even ten minutes of weeding can make if you focus on a single area and have your gloves and tools close at hand.\u00a0 This fact may also bring some comfort to those who hate weeding.<\/p>\n

Presuming that you can tell the desirable plants from the weeds, pulling weeds is fairly mindless work.\u00a0 You have to pay enough attention to get the interlopers out by the roots, but otherwise, you can relax and let your brain consider other things.<\/p>\n

There are those who listen to music while weeding, or take their phones along.\u00a0 I don\u2019t do either of those things unless I am expecting an urgent message or call.\u00a0 Texts from my sister on her sons\u2019 latest accomplishments do not count as \u201curgent\u201d.<\/p>\n

I prefer to listen to the music of the garden and the neighborhood.\u00a0 Sometimes that music is prosaic and includes the thrumming of mowers, the blasting of leaf blowers or the mechanical whine of chainsaws.\u00a0 What I like best is when all that garden maintenance noise ceases and I can enjoy the special stillness of a summer day.\u00a0 The stillness is deceptive though, because it harbors a multitude of sounds.\u00a0 In my garden the gray catbird comments on everything and gets particularly vocal when our nineteen year-old cat, Sarah, makes one of her daily pilgrimages to the back porch.\u00a0 The resident cardinals sing \u201cchip, chip\u201d to each other and, in high summer, wood doves coo softly while promenading on the brick paths. The cicadas compete from the trees with long sequences of high-pitched droning.<\/p>\n

This summer weeding has been a special joy because of the butterflies.\u00a0 The butterfly bushes, Joe Pye weeds and other plants have hosted more winged visitors than they have in years.\u00a0 It is not uncommon in my backyard right now to see at least three orange and black monarchs vying for the available nectar.\u00a0 They are joined by tiger swallowtails, both the normal yellow-winged type and the females with variant coloring that is predominately black.\u00a0 Red admirals and their relatives, the painted ladies, have been regular visitors, as have common cabbage white butterflies and silver-spotted skippers.\u00a0 When I am on my knees weeding in their midst the butterflies ignore me, as long as I am not flinging weeds around.\u00a0 This gives me the chance to appreciate their colors and flight patterns.<\/p>\n

Of course, weeding is not all butterflies and rainbows.\u00a0 If you have a large garden or a somewhat neglected one, it can be hard work.\u00a0 That is why I save myself time and energy by covering paths with porous landscape fabric blanketed by cedar mulch.\u00a0 Back behind the large shrubs where no one will be the wiser, is a carpet of newspaper completely covered by a thick layer of pulled weeds, which wither into brown, inexpensive mulch in a matter of days.\u00a0 Using the discarded weed method controls new weeds, recycles garden waste and reduces the amount of bagged material that I have to put out at the curb for weekly pick-up.\u00a0 When I get the chance, I also apply cedar mulch to the bare ground in the beds.\u00a0 This practice does not prevent weeds, but it does slow them down.<\/p>\n

I believe it was the Shakers who admonished gardeners to \u201cweed ceaselessly\u201d.\u00a0 If you can\u2019t do that\u2014and most of us wouldn\u2019t want to– at least weed regularly, with all your senses engaged.\u00a0 The benefits to both garden and gardener are worth the trouble.<\/p>\n

\"Wild<\/a>
Wild grape knows no bounds<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Longwood Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, is one of my favorite garden destinations.\u00a0 For the price of admission, you can spend a day wallowing in world class horticultural splendor and, unless you venture into the less cultivated areas, you will never see weeds.\u00a0 The beds are meticulously tended and if any weed dares to raise … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,2,3,5],"tags":[405,2160,404,58,2161,112],"class_list":["post-2831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall","category-general-interest","category-spring","category-summer","category-winter","tag-crabgrass","tag-gardening-inspiration","tag-onion-grass","tag-summer-gardening","tag-weed-control","tag-weeds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2831"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2836,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2831\/revisions\/2836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gardenersapprentice.com\/gardeningtips\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}