THE JOYS OF WEEDING (Part 1)
About the human body, hand tools, and finding what works for you.
Dear Reader,
Like a parachute, Grimsby’s trees suddenly deployed their canopies and we landed mid-spring. It seems just yesterday the Niagara Escarpment was bare and brown, now it’s a sea of green so dense you can no longer see the ridge from below. Even blooms and buzzing bees have awakened. The air is fragrant with lilacs, crabapples and korean spice viburnums. The long weekend, an early one this year, has come and gone. It rained before, and it’s raining again. Gardeners, roll up your sleeves, spring cleanups are on their way out; it’s weeding time!
THE LITTLE SEDGE UNDER THE OLD OAK
About where inspiration comes from
Dear Reader,
Beneath Grimsby’s last remaining old growth oaks, near the fairytale Grimsby beach homes, grows a partly shaded garden. Its steel blue and burgundy foliage, highlighted by white margins, display annually on a carpet of black mulch. But as enchanting as are the globe blue spruces, Japanese maples and carpets of variegated hostas, what interested me most last Thursday was a small patch of fine bright green grass.
The grass, planted a few years ago, has established well in its sandy dry shade corner.
THE LONG AWAITED RETURN OF YELLOW WILLOWS
Dear Reader,
There is such a thing as the perfect day for cutting sod.
I finally got a sod cutter the Saturday before last. A manual one – looks like an 1300’s plough with V-shaped handles, but instead of a share there’s a horizontal 12” blade attached to an equally wide roller. It works like a charm, if charms worked with a kick and a grunt.
It is a significant improvement over the fork and hand hoe method, having tripled my work speed. The sharp blade slices soil easily and evenly. It’s counter-balanced by the weight of the roller, so when you put your body weight