Weekend at the Farm June 3 - 4, 2017

I arrived Friday night after work.  Bert was already here.  It was supposed to be a rainy weekend, but no rain appeared on Saturday.  Saturday night we got some rain, and it clouded up on Sunday evening but it was only a light drizzle.  We sure need it.

• I spent Saturday morning pulling up coreopsis and other spent wildflowers that were flopping over into other plants.  I tried as best I could to stay away from the weeds because I was dumpling the wheelbarrows of debris into the compost pile.  Weed pulling comes later.  I pulled up Hojo Santo, and cut back giant rudbeckia and other stuff that was in the wrong place.  I staked a few plants that needed some help, cut away four o'clocks leaning into paths, and I started hacking away at my almond verbena tree / shrub.  The almond verbena froze down to the ground this winter, so it wants to come back as a big bushy shrub.  But the spot where it's growing wants a tree-like plant.  So I'm trying to train it back into a tree form.
• Jeff and Amy stopped by for about twenty minutes to look at the clearing.  She gave me some good information and encouragement regarding my clearing / future miniature Post Oak Savannah grassland.
• I watered in the Rose Garden.  Several of my roses are distressed which really surprised me since I only skipped a week of being here. 
• Slept through the entire middle of the day.
• In the late afternoon I went out to the Rose Garden to work.  The sky was dark and the temperature had cooled.  It looked like rain, but it never came.  I pulled up three or four heaping wheelbarrows full of black-eyed susans and tickseed plants - I cut back some of the tickseed thinking it might come up from the roots.  I wheeled them to the compost pile.  I might come to regret throwing those seed-laden plants into the compost, but it's done now.  I got most of the beds done.  Now all that's left is my water-distressed roses.
• Saturday night / Sunday morning it rained, sometimes hard rain and thunder and lightening.  That's good.  We needed it.  It was a welcome thing for my new clearing as well although we had some erosion.
• Sunday morning I went to the Orchard.  I kind of dreaded it because I thought it would be a huge mess.  But I had it somewhat under control in about two hours.  I cut a bunch of Mexican Hat down to the ground, trimmed the moss verbena off the paths, pulled up dead red phlox, weeded, deadheaded zinnias, pulled up blackberry that was popping up in all the wrong places, trimmed blackberry away from the paths, scooped up dirt from the paths (armadillo damage) and threw it in the flower beds, walked over the mulch to mash it down, cut away grape vines that were touching the ground, etc.   I went up to the house and put on my leather rose gloves to pull up the big blackberry branches.  
• Next I made myself a bloody mary and walked to the Rose Garden to see what I was going to do next.  Although I had done a lot yesterday evening, I saw lots I needed to do.  I cut back several roses that were struggling, fertilized them and ran the water on them.  I cut back a lot of tickseed and pulled some weeds.  I dug up some buttercup turnera growing in the paths and transplanted it where the Iceberg rose used to be. 
• Slept through the entire afternoon from noon until four.
• At four o'clock I went to the Rose Garden and worked until 7.  I cut back more tickseed.  Weeded.  I fertilized, watered, and cut back several roses:  Ducher, Mrs Dudley Cross and Cadenza.  I fertilized and watered some others.  Re-positioned the sprinklers.  Hauled two heaping wheelbarrows full of debris to the compost pile.