Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Doing Yardwork


Was outside doing yard work today. Nothing unusual, just had to mow the grass, dead-headed some of my beautiful Meidiland Sevillana roses...and believe me, they really are beautiful roses, very easy to take care of, no worries about mildew or rust, and they just bloom and bloom and bloom! I give them a deep soaking about once a week, if I'm fertilizing the lawn I might throw a hand full of fertilizer on the roses if I think about it! When I'm out working in the front yard, I often have neighbors comment to me how nice my roses look! The picture above is of Sevillana roses, but unfortunately the picture is not from my yard. My roses look just as good as these, but I don't have a camera that would take as beautiful of a picture as this one is!

After I finished up in the front I had to go in the back yard and trim up a planter of Star Jasmine (
Trachelospermum jasminoides) or also known as Confederate Jasmine. For those of you not familiar with this plant, it is a Viney type of plant that produces lots and lots of small (about dime sized) white flowers that are ever so sweet to smell. After they finish with a round of flowers, they will send out long, vine like growth that will twist and twine around themselves and any other plants they can grow into, so that is an easy indication that it is time to trim them back down a bit. Now comes the fun part, the leaves and stems are full of a milky white sap that is very sticky. Well, I was doing my gardening chores in my bare feet today as I had surgery on some of my toes a few weeks ago and putting shoes on is still pretty uncomfortable! As I trimmed the long branches, the milky sap started to flow in excess, and as the stems and leafs started falling to the ground, and as I moved around the planter, I began to collect sticky stems and leafs on the bottom of my feet! Before I knew it, the soles of my bare feet were entirely coated with the Star Jasmine leafs and pieces of stems! Couldn't shake them off no matter how hard I tried, and finally had to sit down and peel them all off the bottoms of my feet! I should have just left them stuck to my feet, because I still had to rake up all the fallen debris and in doing that, I again had a thick layer of sticky leafs on my feet. I began to think I was like some monster in an old 'B' grade movie or some giant insect that camouflages itself with all the sticky stems and leaf pieces! As it dries, the sap turns black on your skin, but fortunately it is water soluble and washes of quite readily!

Well, after fantasizing about movie monsters and giant insects, I decided that it was time to cool of in the pool before calling it a day from my yard work!

So long until next time!

Ron, the Plant Man

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