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It's one thing to have a flower garden, and quite another to keep it weed-free. Simplifying my garden over the last two years has saved me so much time and effort. Since I don't like clutter, I'm not sentimental about what I keep and what I don't keep. I made the decision to focus on my daylilies, because they are what I truly love. I only have a finite amount of time available to keep things looking nice so I made some changes. Here's what I did:
Removed the 40 foot long split-rail fence. Fences are weed magnets. What a back-breaker crawling under and around a fence trying to remove weeds. This never bothered me 20 years ago, but that was then and this is now. Ange helped me pull the fence posts out, fill up the holes with dirt, and haul the fence posts and rails away with our John Deere lawn tractor. Best decision ever! In addition, there is much more air flow for my daylilies which they have really responded to.
Goodbye Garden Phlox. Garden phlox are fragrant and pretty from a distance, but up close they were -- I'll just say 'not pretty.' Every year they got powdery mold and mildew. I was not willing to put in the time to get rid of the mold and mildew year-after-year. As they grew and spread they would get entangled with Creeping Charlie and crabgrass; then the ticks moved in.
Ditto to Bee Balm. I know hummingbirds and butterflies love them, but unfortunately I don't. They have tender shallow little roots that constantly got tangled up with weeds. I got tired of re-planting them each time I weeded and accidentally pulled them out. They got powdery mold and mildew too , even in full sun.
The flowers in the above two photos are long gone. Last summer was the first time that weeding was easily doable. And I thought my garden was still beautiful, even without the fence, the phlox and the bee balm.
Removed the 40 foot long split-rail fence. Fences are weed magnets. What a back-breaker crawling under and around a fence trying to remove weeds. This never bothered me 20 years ago, but that was then and this is now. Ange helped me pull the fence posts out, fill up the holes with dirt, and haul the fence posts and rails away with our John Deere lawn tractor. Best decision ever! In addition, there is much more air flow for my daylilies which they have really responded to.
Goodbye Garden Phlox. Garden phlox are fragrant and pretty from a distance, but up close they were -- I'll just say 'not pretty.' Every year they got powdery mold and mildew. I was not willing to put in the time to get rid of the mold and mildew year-after-year. As they grew and spread they would get entangled with Creeping Charlie and crabgrass; then the ticks moved in.
Ditto to Bee Balm. I know hummingbirds and butterflies love them, but unfortunately I don't. They have tender shallow little roots that constantly got tangled up with weeds. I got tired of re-planting them each time I weeded and accidentally pulled them out. They got powdery mold and mildew too , even in full sun.
The flowers in the above two photos are long gone. Last summer was the first time that weeding was easily doable. And I thought my garden was still beautiful, even without the fence, the phlox and the bee balm.
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