Last week, many thousands of maple seeds and overflowing leaves from the planting areas were cleared from the front walk and primary paths. For several days, the areas were nearly tidy, but today they’re covered again by browned Japanese maple leaves damaged by last week’s freeze.

The path in the side garden is now covered in white, the falling petals of Chinese snowball viburnum (Viburnum macrocephalum, below). For several days, footing will be treacherous, but the petals stick to the stones so they’re not easily removed. And anyway, they’ll dry and quickly decay without labor on my part.

The garden is never finished. New plants are added weekly (the good part) and maintenence is never completed (not so good but an accepted part of the process). I don’t think age is catching up with me, but it seems I’m further behind this year. Must be the weather.

Large areas of the rear garden have been invaded by a prolific weed. I suspect it is the native jewelweed (Impatiens capensis, above), and certainly I’d like for some to remain, but not thousands. They’re easy to pull, but they’re growing under, around, and through many shrubs so they’re difficult to get to. I’m slowly working to manage them, and no doubt, the abundance is why jewelweed is a weed. I enjoy its flowers, so I don’t make an effort to pull every one, but here’s the price to pay.

I do not favor supposedly beneficial pollinator practices such as No Mow May. I have eliminated most of the lawn areas, and I mow only when the grass is long enough to choke the mower. But, that is due to laziness, not concern for pollinators. There are enough flowers in the garden to support the bees and butterflies and any number of birds and beasts that reside here.

The small rear lawn is increasingly being overtaken by creeping Mazus (Mazus reptans, above). The mower glides over the top, barely injuring an inch of the plant that covers many square yards. I don’t ever see pollinators feasting on it, but I assume they do, and in any case it’s more attractive than lawn grass. The Mazus does sneak into the borders of planting areas and between path stones, but that’s not too big an issue.

The worst part of swamp maple (Acer rubrum) seeds drifting in from the neighboring forest is still to come. Clearing seeds from the paths is easy, pulling many thousands of seedlings is not. But, I’ve been doing this for years and it’s likely I’ll do it until I can no longer tend the garden. This isn’t the fun part, but if I want to enjoy the garden it’s got to be done.