serinde

Have just planted an alyssum border in front (and done a bit of transplanting) and deadheaded the fading spring bulbs as part of Operation: Whited Sepulchre. I also cut some lilac and hyacinths to put inside the house.

Usually this would peg my happyometer at 11.

In spite of the aforementioned general debilitation, and that going to the store this morning nearly did me in, I was driven to go forth and try to make up some of the neglect our garden suffered this season. Weeded the beds by the front walk (which have almost no real plants left after the Dry Time), had a go at some strange vine-thing growing up through the front shrubbery, and got all the branches off the two Horrible Thorny Things some insane person planted along the fence. Why does anyone plant pyracantha? Ever? Our last house had some, too, which had scraped swaths of paint off the the siding it was against. The other Horrible Thing looks much like a rosebush, but has no flowers, and is annoying as fuck. There's a lot of that around these parts, too. And they both grow like gangbusters.

I haven't picked up the horrible thorny remnants, as I need better gloves. Last time I tried, the thorns went right through my heaviest pair. I will also need to gear myself up to get the stumps out, and won't that just be a treat?

Have spent several happy, if monomaniacal, hours going another round with what passes for Brian's flower bed. Last year was spent getting to know the unfamiliar plants in it; this year will see the destruction of everything that is hateful in my sight. Of which there is a lot.

Tonight's specific campaign was against the rosebush, which you can see the base part that was planted and it still looks tolerably fine (or would with a bit of pruning), but the rootstock has gone all Third Reich and sought lebensraum in every direction. It is pernicious. And the gloves I had were insufficiently thornproof. But it's mostly eradicated, with only the main bush and one or two sturdier client-states next to it remaining.

Then we bought twelve bags of mulch, which barely fit in the car.