Garden clean up, mulching, propagation by cuttings

The weather has been very cooperative...up until today....to do a garden clean up. Today it is raining. Since I can't work outside today it is a good day to write about spring garden clean up. I want to give my plants a head start, so I started the clean up by doing  a little at a time. I choose a chunk and work on it everyday a chunk at a time. One bed one day, half a bed another day, eventually it will all be done.

Montauk Daisy emerging this spring,
started last year from cuttings

                 At this house I have chosen to keep all plantings in the same area, the area with southern and western light. I chose this spot because it can be seen from the street and the porch. It makes the main entrance look neat and welcoming. What is the point of a garden if you cannot enjoy the fruits of your labor by looking at it?  It will require irrigation, a kit we bought in Lowes for $25, and with this it will be sustained for the whole growing season. We chose to put on a timer that we purchased at Walmart for around $85 or so. That timer freed us up from watering, it worked great. It automatically comes on and turns off. We did this last year and I can see the difference it made this spring. My plants are coming up very healthy and happy indicating a good root system from last year's watering system. I started many plants from cuttings last year, and they survived the winter intact, likely much due to the watering system. Another day I will go into detail and photograph the parts of the system to show what we used.

As for the clean up, I gathered my tools: a small leaf rake used to clean leaves out of shrubbery, and a garden cart, a plastic lightweight bin to transport what I cleaned out. I also have a neat little seat that has a cubby for storage and wheels on the bottom. Its called a Lawn Buddy, and it has made gardening possible for me. I have a condition that hinders my ability to garden. This allows me to sit when I need to, and to roll sideways to move along the garden at will. My clean up involves clearing out leaves, removing dried out stalks and leaves from my perennials, pulling out weeds..especially the evil wire grass...and pruning perennials and shrubs back to the live limbs so the new growth can blossom out. Once cleaned out it all goes into the garden cart and then onto the compost pile, the circle of garden life. The compost will come back into the garden as mulch to enhance the sandy soil.

In addition to the compost we do purchase a pine bark mulch that gets heaped on the roots and exposed soils of the gardens. This will enhance the soil, keep it moist after irrigation, make the bed warmer, and make weeding easier at every point during the year. It also looks great.  The mulch is the biggest time saver I can think of. I have read that hay makes great mulch and breaks down quickly, but it was easier to procure the bark than the hay.