Chugging along.

Back to work outside.  The weather interrupted for the weekend.  I don't have rain gear that will let me work in rain without getting soaked, so no outside work this past weekend.

I got back to it this morning despite my body desperately trying to convince me that I shouldn't.  The last of the old plantings are now gone.  Despite all the rain, I had to use the mattock to get out the last of the plastic edging and the liriope.

Then I took the mattock to the root mass for the smilax and got that out.  And when I saw that the sweet autumn clematis was going to try for yet another comeback, I took the mattock to that root mass as well.  There is room for another 3 elderberry bushes and the second camellia plant.

How long it takes to get those in the ground depends on how hard the holes are to dig.  But unless natural interferes again, I should have them all planted in the next two days.

Then I start the next two parts of this project.  One is getting the mulch layer down for the plants.  The cardboard will be two foot from the house.  The landscape cloth will be over that.  Both will go out to 7.5 feet from the house.  From 7.5 feet to a little over 8 feet will get turned with the mattock and have more soil added.  Then asparagus and fall blooming crocus will be planted.  I will be carefully placing paper board, not cardboard, to keep the weeds down as much as possible until both of those plants take over enough to crowd out the weeds.  

While I hate weeding, this section of this garden bed is going to need maintenance until the plants grow in enough.  But it will always be blooming because the asparagus will bloom for the warmer months while the crocus start popping up in October and stay green through early spring.

I'm truly hoping that being moved into the ground will help the crocus to do better.  They've only been surviving in the planters. I'd like them to thrive and expand.