The high price of neglect

It's another year of backbreaking clearing. Digging out the blackberries, weed eating 3' high grass, truckloads of green waste/dump runs. It's devastating. IT's overwhelming. I let it go, and it got more than away from me. It's rendered the back yard unusable.

Last summer we cleared the side yard, and it is still intact. Replanted and flourishing, hydrangeas and roses blooming, hollyhocks standing tall, Sweet Woodruff filling in. It's encouraging. And going to be even more beautiful.

This time, I hope to accomplish the same in the back, get it back to the well-on-its-way-to-garden-tour-material status. I have the benefit of mature plantings now, in the form of trees and some rhodies. Most everything else isn't there anymore, blackberries choked out every living thing. As we're clearing, daylilies are popping up and starting to sprout greenery again. A rose bloomed as if to say THANK YOU. Some things are being pruned back almost to death, and if they survive, good, if they don't they will just be replaced. It's not fun.

But there's hope.