Since we purchased those four baby rhododendron on sale yesterday at Home Depot, I had nothing else to do today other than prepare the area and soil so that the rhododendron can go in without trouble. There is one thing that I am very fastidious about and that is getting rid of all weeds around where I am planning to dig. It bothers me to no end when I plant a new addition and I see a weed hanging around. Today wasn’t easy because where I was going to put two of the rhododendron together was where the bamboo patch had been and I thought that I had gotten rid of all of the root system yesterday afternoon, but this morning when I took the first shovelful of dirt, I hit another errant root lurking way down deep off to the side. It took me another few hours to find all the rest of the offshoots of those stubborn bamboo roots. By 3 o’clock this afternoon, I finally had the three rhododendron in the ground near the pool.
The fourth one was a little less of an annoyance, this time I was battling my nemesis, the Bishop’s weed. It wasn’t so bad because the area that I had planned to put the rhododendron in, was more or less ready for it. However, I wanted the ground area next to the rhododendron to be cleared away so that when the rhododendron gets bigger, it will be the focus where people immediately look to after looking around at the pond and the hosta. That is where I was battling the Bishop’s weed; I had installed a brick walkway a few years back and the weeds had overtaken my little walkway so today I dug up all the brick, dug out the extensive root system of the Bishop’s weed and re-installed the brick. It looks all nice and tidy, I can’t predict how long it will stay this way but for today, I think that it looks quite nice.
The tall yellow plants are now in bloom, I call it Jack’s forest because he absolutely loves going in and out of the plants and you can hear and see the plants rustle and sway back and forth when Jack is in there. He loves his backyard, he really is master of all he surveys.
laurieanichols 