Before I go into today’s post, I have an announcement.
Elvis lives! My ‘Velvet Elvis’ water iris started blooming today.
Isn’t he pretty?
Okay, back to the main topic. By “Dirty Harriet”, I refer to myself. I have become a vigilante in search of justice, justice against the weeds that encroached upon my garden during the surgery years.
What weed could be so bad that it would inspire an organic gardener and peace loving person like myself to seek vengeance?
It’s what my neighbor calls, “the worst weed of all.” It is lawn grass.
I would much rather have flowers than lawn so most of my front yard is garden rather than grass. But there is a strip of grass on the west side of the house that remained and vexed me all through last summer when I couldn’t weed, continued in the fall, when I still couldn’t weed, and just laughed at me during the early spring right after my TRAM surgery.
But, like Arnold, “I’m baaack.” (Oops, wrong movie reference.) I can lift, I can dig, and after endless furniture shopping for my new office, I had tons of cardboard boxes.
Behold my handiwork! I put down cardboard over all of the remaining grass and put down a cedar mulch path. Tomorrow, I will lay down compost and mulch to build a planting area for shrubs. I won’t plant anything back there until next year, to give the card board a chance to work on the grass underneath.
Planting bed in progress.
“Follow the Cedar Bark Road, follow the Cedar Bark Road.”
Velvet Elvis approves of the changes and said, “Thank you verra much.”
My Eyes Are Up Here 
Elvis is indeed beautiful! btw: I love your screen/blog name of “My Eyes are Up Here.” I laugh every time I see it. Ever since b.c., I’ve noticed when people find out, they tend to look at my breasts as if to say, “Are those fake? Oh, you had a lumpectomy. Hmmm, not so synchronized. The right one’s noticeably smaller.” I can’t tell you how many times I’ve felt like saying, “My eyes are up here!” 🙂
I’m glad you enjoy my screen name, Eileen. It is funny how people react to the news of breast cancer. Some women reflexively put a hand to their own breast. And yes, our eyes are up here, people! We are more than our breasts or breast cancer. Thanks for reading!
My Dirty Harry was out in the yard all afternoon yesterday, by last night, his hands cramped up, his back screamed and his feet throbbed! I would have helped him but I have allergies so am prohibited from frolicking among the weeds. I have great guilt over this..really..okay, maybe not a lot. But, I have great respect for you gardeners out there who win the War Of The Weeds.
Great post, enjoyed it as usual!
Cranky, you would have loved my younger brother’s reply to my Evite for the weeding party I had a few weeks ago. He wrote, “Sorry, we will not be able to attend. We are attending another party to drain a friend’s goiter.”
THAT’s how much he hates weeding.
He da man!
I told him that the goiter contents would probably be a good soil amendment but he was not convinced. I know, totally gross, but if you can’t be gross with your little brother, what’s the use of having one?
Ohhh…mulch material!
🙂
Enjoyable post today, including all the comments. Elvis is lovely.
Let me know how the cardboard works. We tried that in the section by our driveway. It certainly helps but is not 100% effective. But, if you plant shrubs as you stated, it should work.
I’m putting a bunch of compost and mulch on top of the cardboard and then leaving it alone for a year. I am expecting some grass to come up around the edges. I used a good amount of cardboard so we’ll see.