On Monday I went to exercise class then home to work on laundry and cleaning up the kitchen, then back to the Senior Center for a lecture on bird migration. It was the same lecturer who did birds at your feeders earlier.
She’s a very engaging lecturer and has well made slide shows. But I was still very tired from the weekend and had trouble not dozing off. I was glad to get home and just do laundry and rest until bedtime.
On Tuesday I planned to get outside and clean out the mess above in the South garden. It had taken me a couple days to process the 124 photos I took on Sunday and turn them into posts. I worked on that for a while Tuesday morning. Then I got an e-mail from the solar company saying there would be no compensation for losing a year’s electricity.
So I dragged out the contract and all the charts I’d made and tried to make sense of it all. It turns out each year of generation does not stand alone. They are all added onto the following year as it finishes. Plus they only guarantee 95% efficiency, or of what they call the “Initial Year”. So between these 2 components my system generated enough in the good years to more than compensate for all the bad ones, even 12.5 months of half generation. So all I get is $750 to cover the $1600 of electric bills. I spent most of the morning into early afternoon determining this.
So I finally got outside at 1:30PM and started on the gardens. I worked on this West of Steps garden and the thyme along the walkway first.
The chrysanthemum on the far left had tiny sprouts but I didn’t see them until I’d half pulled it out. I hope it makes it. There are 2 dianthus in this garden. The one towards the front is doing much better than the one behind it. The bulbs mostly all have buds, daffodils along the steps and Star of Bethlehem foliage only across the front.
Next I cleaned out and cut back the creeping thyme along the walkway.
That brought me to the office steps so I started cleaning out this section of the South garden first. Alongside the steps and the house there’s been a clematis, but it wasn’t doing so well last year. I hope it comes back.
There had been 2 pots of liatris in this area, but they were dead, so I pulled them out. That left only hollyhocks and a pot of chocolate mint in this garden for plants. All the rest are bulbs: daffodils, jonquils, Spanish bluebells, wood hyacinths, iris reticulate, grape hyacinths, tulips and Star of Bethlehem. Oh, and one mustn’t forget the snowdrops all over.
Besides the tiny iris reticulate back in front of the window, the only other bulbs almost ready are daffodils with many buds.
The hollyhocks weren’t doing well, most leaves had rust on them. The peppermint had started to sprout and had managed to root outside the pot, so I had to dig those sprouts out.
This section had a geranium in the back corner with a pot of spiderwort next to it (both out of sight). The wallflower barely survived the winter (also out of sight). The hens and chicks were dead and the sedum, still mostly red, was all that was left.
I was too tired after 2¼ hours of weeding to plant sweet pea seeds. I also need to string up a trellis for them on the side of the porch. But I got the amendment down and notes made and photos taken and the mess cleaned up.
I went to bed early and hoped for a good night’s sleep. On Wednesday I have exercise class, and then my general helper arrives at noon. I hope to get the shelving needed for the next seed starting up and get all prepped. If there’s still time, I hope to go out with her to the New Herb garden and work on those last rows of weeds.