The Hedges

This first shot was taken from the middle of the street in front of
the house, just to give you an idea of what the hedge by the front
walk looked like before I started "denuding" it. That's the word
the Dearly Beloved uses to describe my efforts.

What he doesn't realize is that short of kerosene around the roots,
napalm from above, or digging them up...you can't kill Wax Leaf Lugustrum. And I'm not entirely sure about the napalm.


This stump in the foreground is
what started all my "yard-work
mania." It's all that's left of a dead 50' pine tree we had cut down Wednesday. 35 minutes start to
finish. The same crew came back Thursday to trim about 3/4 ton of branches off our American Elm tree. It grew over the house since the Pine tree blocked it's growth in the other direction. Problem developed when some of those branches were scraping on the roof. So, they removed the problem branches.

After they left I was inspired to tackle the 10' hedge along the front walk. 3 yrs ago I gave away the lugustrums on the South side of the walk to a couple with NO plants in the less them.
If I could sucker someone into doing the same thing with these...I'd do it in a heartbeat!
I LOATHE lugustrums. My dream is to get rid of them. Build STURDY trellises. And stagger plant 4 white wisterias. Train them up and over the trellises. Voila'! Arbor!

But, in the meantime, I cut these monsters back once a year to between 4' to 6' tall. I got a good start and I'll finish tomorrow afternoon.

Here is a shot of all the clippings:

Well, in addition to the piles in the above shots.

This morning I worked more on the cacti garden. And I'll try to finish it up tomorrow evening. Maybe I'll have pics tomorrow of that finished product.

Since I have a 3-day wedding to go to this Friday through Sunday, I won't be doing any yard work after Monday...gotta give the hand and arm scratches time to heal. I am wearing a sleeveless dress for the wedding and a sleeveless sundress for the Welcome Dinner... my arms have to look nice. And I volunteered to do some of the bar tending so my hands have to look nice too. There WILL be pictures of the Dearly Beloved and me lookin' all spiffied.

I Feelin' a Little Prickly Tonight

But that's because I spent part of my morning working on this:
As you can see, I had let the grass get TOTALLY out of control.

The weight of the "lobes" had caused them to rest on the ground. In the process of lifting one branch up, I broke a lobe off.

So I propped it up with this edger, in the shot on the left.The piece I broke off I planted in an area cleared of grass.

Since these two plants started as two lobes hacked off a big plant out in Terlingua and plopped down in some succulent potting soil on the "sunny" side of the house, I have every reason to believe this little fella, with it's own 'baby' will grow in this same medium.

Now THIS pale lobe on the left, was the side showing. When I flipped it over, I found this amazingly healthy looking green side that had been laying on the ground. I am thinking, since it had come loose from the "Mother" plant [see the brown part at the bottom in the left pic?] I'll make a fresh cut, above the brown part and plant it to the right of the stand, in the area I clear in the morning.

I worked about an hour and a half and here is the result:

Now? Now I'm off to remove the little hair/fur like needles the cacti left in my flesh.

And tomorrow I'll post the pics of the hedge 'trimming' I did Thursday and today.