Several hours of this past weekend were occupied by planting. Also removing, which is often more work and not so pleasurable, but large parts of a variegated hydrangea had reverted to green. This hydrangea often was damaged by freezes, and thus rarely flowered, so chopping it out was a year or two overdue. As with any project, the problem is getting started. Once shovel is in hand, I’m good to go, though the going is not as effortless as forty, or even ten years ago.

The weekend’s planting was pretty simple, with removal of the hydrangea and replacing it with a few large azaleas, and another problem area. A narrow strip of lawn between a wide spreading Japanese maple and a cypress long ago faded mostly to mud, and though this was the convenient path to the small patch of lawn in front, it had become a bit of an eyesore. The few tufts of grass were easily skimmed off, and another azalea and a few tiarellas and sedges (Carex) were added to fill the space. Probably, these will be crowded out eventually as the maple continues to spread, but azaleas, tiarellas, and sedges are easily moved if it comes to that. Now, I’ll be a bit less likely to drag mud into the house after wandering through the garden.

As usual, my wife was not enthusiastic about any of it, except the mud part, if that occurred to her. A waste of money, to her thinking. There’s too much garden already, she says, so she suggests that I remove two for every one I plant. Of course, this won’t work, and as for the immediate projects, I waited too long to be rid of these problems. After a pleasant summer with too little activity I was happy to be digging again.