CHANGE

 

Out and about yesterday I regretted wearing a vest rather than a sleeved jacket. Not cold, not warm, the in-between that February gives us is confusing. Once we’ve left the house our decision affects us for the duration.

Today walking around the front garden without vest or jacket but with a pot of primroses in each hand, I am faced with another fact of February: weeds. Those nasty bunches of round, green leaves have been proliferating when I was busy coming and going. As the spring flowers are also pushing up their tiny green noses it is obvious I will be pulling weeds by hand if I don’t get the first layer hoed off soon.

 

Last year the magazine, Birds and Blooms, suggested soaking flat cardboard and laying it on areas of the garden where perennials aren’t trying to emerge. The end result is the nasty weeds come up but get no sunlight and DIE. We hope. We buy stacks of eggs nesting on paper mache trays which, after the eggs have been used, I have been layering under the shrubs and wherever the weed seeds threaten. Using thick cut brown mulch I am covering the cardboard. Hopefully the layers over this next year will eliminate the need for strenuous weeding over and over throughout the rainy Spring and early Summer.

Lots of hope and hopefully, less stress on my aging physique which seems to be the only part of life that doesn’t change. Aging that is.