Weeding The Flowerbed

Between getting into a daytime sleep-cycle, the brutal heat of a couple weeks ago (but not much better now), and Ayla having medical complications all last week, the weeds took over!  It sure doesn't take them long to grow and for me to get behind...

This is where I planted annuals this year.  I had a large area where some evil runner grass had taken over last Fall.  I dug it out carefully, but some came back this Spring.

I lifted the perennials out and searched through their roots for runners, then moved them elsewhere mostly to make larger patches of their same kind.  My columbine patch is now double in size, for example.

Then I dug the runner grass out again using a spading fork to loosen the soil so that I could follow all the runners several inches underground and slide them out carefully .  That worked very well.  There is almost none left.

But all that digging brought a lot of other weed seeds to the surface and the planted annual bed exploded with them.  As you can see here...

Here's a closeup of one part for reference.

This is the same spot after I spent over an hour of weeding.  Remarkably better.

After the 1st effort I had plenty left to do...

And here is that same section after today's work!

An overview of the entire weeded area!

But that is just the annual area.  As you can see, I have a few more days of work waiting for me.  This spot won't be TOO bad.  Most of that is actually non-weedy perennials that have already bloomed for the year and weeds in the garden path that will come up from the pea gravel easily.

This area will be harder.  There are several kinds of weeds with thin roots that break off easily.  That means digging.

This will be difficult, too.  The close growing dianthus makes it hard to get at the wiregrass and mock strawberry embedded among them.

At least those areas are shaded after 4 pm.  But did I mentioned my area is infested with Asian Tiger Mosquitoes?  Deet works well enough on my arms and neck, but they still swarm around my face looking for a place to land!

And then I spent over an hour hand watering the weeded area and some parts that were most desperate.  I'll water the rest of the flower and garden later when the shade arrives.

Well, I'll have more pictures when I make more progress...