Mimi’s Corner: Summer Chores
The past winter was a mild one, and spring started out mild as well, tornadoes not withstanding. Consequently, the bulbs, flowering trees, and all garden flowers had a head start, blooming early and prodigiously. Our six crabapple trees were beautiful. The clematis, viburnums, columbines, and other perennials enjoyed the pleasant temperatures and plentiful rain and were off to a rip-roarin’ start to the season.
Their early blooms, however, have left us with not as much to enjoy in June, which is when we normally see them. Luckily, our annuals—petunias, geraniums, impatiens, and the like—will do their job as soon as they get geared up, with roots acclimated, and sun and rain when needed.
That leaves us with summer chores. We’ve already pruned lower limbs from a Norway spruce, some limbs so heavy that I could hardly drag them to our truck and toss them in the truck bed. Next, we attacked a crabapple’s gnarly limbs, ones that were low enough to cause a severe head injury for the unwary walker. Then we shaped up a Doublefile viburnum that is now half what it was—and yet is still twelve feet tall, and ten feet wide. So far this year, we’ve taken at least five pickup truck loads to the Dye Mill Road Facility and will take at least one more tomorrow.
If you haven’t been there, be prepared. It’s dirty, dusty, desolate, and dang scary in a way, dotted with huge piles of yard refuse—one of the weirdest places in our area. There’s a gentleman at the entrance who will direct you to the proper spot to dump, deposit, divest, or donate all those natural cuttings, clippings, branches, leaves, etc.—but it must not be food waste. Check the website for the complete list of what is accepted. It’d be a shame to take a load of refuse only to be turned away.
I tell you, gardening is not for sissies! What gets dragged to your car or truck and loaded into it, must later be dragged out and tossed onto the proper pile. By the end of summer, I should have arms like Supergirl! And there are still four more crabapples to prune, and a Japanese maple, a tricolor willow, a score of boxwood, and other evergreens to shape up.
Listen people, it’s a good idea to wear goggles or at least glasses of some sort when pruning trees. Eyes are precious! Also, when using hand pruners, keep your eyes not just where the cut is being made, but also at the tip of the hand pruners. A few years ago, during another pruning extravaganza, I was in a hurry, not paying close attention, and the tip of my pruners nipped the knuckle of the finger holding the branch, necessitating a few stitches and antibiotics due to the infection that ensued.
Like I said – gardening is not for sissies. Keep your eyes open (and protected), and don’t let your green thumb become red!