We got to get out there and spend some quality time working in the yard. Eva loved spending a lot of the day outside chasing after tennis balls, lying in the grass, and generally supervising Dear Husband (DH) and me.
Now Eva can run back there to chase bunnies and bark at the dog in the yard diagonal to ours.
One little mini daffodil somehow managed to survive.
The biggest task of the day was clearing out the MUCH overgrown grasses bordering the deck. Originally we were going to divide them and replant, but they are so old and have never been split that the roots are bound tighter than rocks. We actually had to cut them apart with an ax!
We have decided that new, fresh plants are the way to go. The root balls were huge. They were about the size of a large beach ball, and near impossible to get out of the ground.
They were so massive we could only put three in the garbage before it was too heavy to move around.
We are only half done, but see how much better it looks?!
DH did have the fantastic idea to use the dead, dried grasses as mulch around the hops!Thankfully the other task we got done was stringing up the hop trellises.
To the right you can see the cut grass as mulch and three ropes going up to the top of the poles. Last year I tried 8' bamboo poles and they were only strong enough to last one year. This year I bought 10' poles of electrical conduit for less than $3 each. So much cheaper than 10' garden stakes!
Last year the hop bines grew so long that they started to climb the gutter, so this year we added more rope, continuing it across the other part of the deck. You can just make it out in the picture to the left.After all this work it called for the first lemonade of the season since we were all tuckered out from a day in the sun.
