As the worm turns

A few posts ago, I mentioned doing an entry on failures. But today I decided that there are no failures in gardening, just experiments and lessons learned. Also, one's goals may evolve over time.

The other day, I found myself gazing on the yellow, orange, red, and purple blooms in the backyard and thinking, "I like to look at these flowers, but the work involved is getting to be too much." So while most of my gardening over the years has been about expanding, now it's beginning to contract.

When I first bought my house, the northwest corner of the backyard had been used as a vegetable garden by the previous owners. It even had a rabbit fence around it. I continued that tradition until the nearby silver maple grew large enough to provide too much shade. Then the plan was to convert that area to a hosta garden, but that never came to pass. For one thing, I was not excited about the idea. For another, I had the silver maple (and three more next to the house) cut down.

For a while, I referred to that corner as The Meadow, but it was mostly Canada thistle. More recently, I started an orchard there, planting four cherry and four apple trees. This year, my SO helped me tote a ton of woodchips to the area, which I thought would keep it at least weed free, but volunteer milkweed popped up all over. Initially, I thought, Cool! But after a storm, all the milkweed fell down. And then the bindweed took over. Ugh.

Now that breeding season is over for the monarchs, I cut down all the milkweed. Today my SO helped me clear out the bindweed. Then I want to move the woodchips elsewhere and turn that corner into lawn.

I'm taking a hard look at the rest of the yard, figuring out how to make it attractive yet manageable. Stay tuned!