The Joslin Garden—Leave it to Cleavers—5-6-2021
I had the most satisfying day working in The Joslin Garden today! Leave it to cleavers for making that happen.
The entire bank along W. Lake Drive was covered with Cleavers, Gallium aparine. Given I like large edit projects, which is why I took on The Joslin Garden, I wasn’t intimated. Is it OK to be proud of a good day’s work?
Cleared cleaver. It took me a solid five hours to clear. I had a bonus, tho. Andy our Mow Supervisor and his team came to mow today. I asked Andy if it was possible to use a weed whacker on the Bear claw hellebores, Helleborus foetidus seedlings. There were thousands! They would have been way worse to remove by hand than the cleavers were.
As it happened, it was good that I was there at the same time as the mow crew. I asked Andy not to mow our clover lawn. There was a lot of bee activity here, and we wanted to wait until the clover finished blooming.
There are a couple of BIG patches of Green and Gold, Chrysogonum australe 'Eco Lacquered Spider'. The patch below is along side a path on the street side. It’s a spreader and was over growing the edging.
Green and Gold before edging.
After hand edging the Green and Gold. The rock is lovely, right?
Aillene volunteered today. We both agreed the garden is starting to shape up. A little at a time, we are working our way through the overgrown and weeds, and removing invasive.
Ground orchid, Spathoglottis plicata. Some days we get so focused, we forget to see the beauty that surrounds us!
My obsession with having proper, well-run composts bins continues. Bin 1 is now officially CLOSED. By this we mean it is in good shape to use, but nothing more can be added. Any additions, like today’s grass clippings, went into Bin 2.
Bin 1 is officially closed for any added waste. We are now using it as compost for the various garden areas.
Volunteer Aillene started removing big sticks from Bin 2. It will take a couple of weeks work to clear all the sticks, but we will have the big stuff removed. Then we can continued to add cut up herbaceous materials, grass clippings, and leaves. This is all a process, and each week, we can see our progress!
Next week, we have another set of weeds to deal with. Everyday, we are making progress!
Until soon,
Helen Yoest
Environmental Scientist, M.S.