Exhausted

There are days I feel way too old for this gardening s*&^.  Yesterday was productive, but exhausting and I barely scratched the surface of the to-do list.  The three or so days of rain were much needed, but as I mentioned, gave the weeds a boost as well.  June is a notoriously busy month in the garden to begin with, but the dryness, then days of rain and abnormally cool temperatures seem to be wreaking havoc.  The established flower beds are all doing well; the beds that were created last year are a weed-fest.  Several plants still need to be relocated as well - either because they aren't the right color for the bed, or they are being crowded out by a pushy neighbor.  I had a few casualties from this past winter as well, so there are still gaps to fill.

I spent 7 hours outside yesterday, until the rain arrived at 4:30.  I cleaned off the patio, which was covered with fallen leaves from our diseased, unidentified tree near the gazebo; swept out the gazebo and spot weeded the beds near the patio. Then I fed all of the new plants and the dahlias (I use an organic fish emulsion).  I did a little spot weeding in the circle and shade gardens, and made a quick trip to the nursery down the road for some gap fillers.  Then I moved to the front flower borders, which were sorely in need of attention.  I had high hopes of getting through all of them (3 borders nearest the house, the island, the small border near the driveway and the new 80' bed near the road).  I managed to get through the beds nearest the house.  Then, in typical fashion, I got side-tracked.  I had picked up a couple of Bleeding Hearts while at the nursery and needed to get them in the ground.  I wanted them in the bed under the apple tree near the barn, which meant weeding and relocating items there.  Because that brought me close to the rhubarb that had gone to seed and become overgrown, that meant I had to cut-back and remove some of that, which led to more weeding as I exposed ground.  I also discovered that the seed heads were covered with dreaded rose chafers, which meant a quick trip out to the berries to see how infested they were as well (some on the raspberries, but not as horrific as anticipated). Then it started raining...

So today began with the usual animal care and then a stop by the raspberries with the bucket of soapy water for some rose chafer decimation.  Once I return from running some errands, it's out to the vegetable garden, which has become over-run with slugs on top of thieving crows.  Feeling like an exercise in futility at the moment.

Not the greatest shot -- peonies, salvia, spiderwort and clematis