Clip joint

I can't tell you how many times I'd wander around the gardens on some errand or other and notice that something needed to be clipped or trimmed.  I chastise myself often for not having my hand pruners with me, but I just can't carry everything with me everywhere.

So when temps cooled down to 70 last evening, I started clipping in earnest.  First off the spent daylilies had to go.  Then I crawled around a couple of crabapple trees and did the best I could with rampant suckers.  I also cleaned up brushy birch branches (lovely graceful trees but very very messy) and pulled down one really long (10') dead branch.

I was out early again this morning and I brought along a few friends for the hand pruners: loppers, reciprocating saw, circular saw and a shovel.  Oh, I was into it now!

I clipped off the mass of spent stalks from 2 Johnson Blue geraniums, a rose yarrow, lots of hosta.  Then I 'limbed up' the 11 tomato plants so nothing was touching the ground (then I top dressed them with TomatoTone and mulched heavily with grass clippings).  

Enough with the pruners.

A couple weeks ago I cut down 1 and seriously trimmed back 2 rhodies in front.  But I couldn't finish shaping one of them because a robin was sitting on eggs. Now the chicks have fledged, so between the loppers and the reciprocating saw that task is done.

Then I grabbed the shovel and headed for the golf course border and dug up a few more tree sprouts that wouldn't yield to hand pulling.

Finally,  I used the circular saw to cut the long 4" thick dead birch branch into 12" lengths for starting fires this winter.

I got done about an hour ago just as the sun was starting to really beat down on the turnaround blacktop.  *whew*  It's so hot out there now I could roast a chicken on the driveway.  (Note to self: investigate solar oven.)

Tomorrow I'll shove all this debris into my hatchback and take it to the county residential yard waste recycling center.  It's kind of a pain that the center is only open 3 days a week, but honestly, I'd rather have that than no center at all. 

Truth be told, ever since I found out I could take stuff there, I've really gone gardening into high gear. Before that I felt limited by the amount of debris I generated. Super thick stalks, woody material, noxious weeds, etc. didn't work in my compost.  And I refused to start a nasty 'brush pile' like some neighbors do (and the vermin they attract). I usually had to pay someone at least once a year to take away piles of branches, etc.  But now, thanks to my tax dollars at work, I compost as much as I can handle here at home and the rest gets made into county compost for the park system.

Win win, for sure.  Well, there is a downside.  There's usually something crawling around in the car. And it gets kinda dirty in there and every now and then I have to open the doors and the hatch and blow the thing out with the leaf blower.  Ahh, true gardening is not for the squeamish!  LOL