I said in a 2016 post that I would “fess” up to some newbie mistakes and, quite frankly, there were quite a few.\u00a0 Some were just blunders, some resulted from pure stupidity on my part and lack of research, but most were the result of simple timing mistakes.\u00a0 You’ve already read about the “House that Jack Built” fiasco, with the re-do’s and re-re-do’s over the blasted narrow strawberry bed!\u00a0 Sigh.\u00a0 But that wasn’t the only big goof for the year.\u00a0 So, here goes with two other mistakes:<\/p>\n
Probably the worst mistake (other than the strawberry fiasco) for our newly purchased little homestead was in trying to do too many things in too many different directions all at once.\u00a0 As a result, several projects have either been reworked or they’re on the 2017 list of stuff that has to be redone.\u00a0 One of those projects is the space between the road and an ugly low rock wall in the front yard.<\/p>\n
My brother and sister-in-law gave us some day lilies from their yard and I wanted to get them planted in front of the rock wall where they would look charming and where we would eventually plant herbs and other flowers for a cottage garden look.\u00a0 But, because there were several strawberry plants that needed to find a quick home or be left to die, this project was “hurried along” and not done properly.\u00a0 Hhmmm. . . notice that there seems to be a theme running here involving strawberries???\u00a0 Instead of digging up the existing sod (which was mostly clay with a few sparse weeds), I just put a layer of wood chips right on the ground without putting a layer of cardboard underneath to kill the weeds.\u00a0 The day lilies went in and a sweet rock border was added along with the ten or so strawberry plants that needed a temporary home until next spring.\u00a0 NOTE TO SELF:\u00a0 cardboard, cardboard, cardboard.\u00a0 Guess what it looks like now???<\/p>\n
Yep, weeds all over the place.\u00a0 Next spring I’ll have to transplant the strawberries when there’s more growing space available, dig up the clay and the weeds that miraculously multiplied (after removing the new rock border), then lay the cardboard down and put the wood chips and rocks back<\/em> in place.\u00a0 Soooo glad to have extra work to do.\u00a0 Not.\u00a0 But didn’t it look good in the beginning???<\/p>\n
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