Overgrown gardens...kikuyu, pots that had dried to a crust, a weed filled lawn, not a pretty site but that was what we were faced with as Louise and I tackled Myra's garden today nearly wilting from the hot sun. Louise had prayed for a cloudy day, but there was no obliging as it does rain on the righteous and unrighteous alike, so I suppose it suns as well. (Maybe someone else prayed for a sunny day, and that prayer was more important). No matter we donned our sunhats and tools and be the end of the morning we had cleared a patch for the weed strimmer/mower to mow.
Our widowed friend had been bed ridden for 9 months recovering from a snapped tendon and unable to garden except for some patio containers containing sweet peas and indoor plants. I found some interesting plants hidden amongst the weed growth - a lime tree, passionfruit vine, a plant that looks like papyrus reed, spring onions, polyanthus, and echeverias. There's a gorgeous Australian frangipani tree smothered in flowers, and the bright spot of the backyard is cerise geranium. Or pelargonium. I'm still not certain which ones are which. There's also raised beds with lettuce, and blueberry bushes.
It has potential. We filled two sacks of weeds. We are going to have to come back next week to tackle the pots on the deck. I will have to research how to get rid of kikuyu as I don't really have that problem in my garden, its more creeping buttercup. Louise's solution seemed to be weedmat, but something will have to be planted there so the kikuyu doesn't grow back. It's ok if it stays in the lawn but not in the garden beds. She had weeded in the shrub border and then it all just grew back, more lush this time. So that is why she's enlisted me to help.
I remember dad asking me to pull up all the kikuyu grass in the lawn and each time I pulled it up, whole strips of it, it would just grow back and I wondered if he just did that to give me something to do, like Sisyphus rolling a huge boulder up a hill that kept rolling back down on him for eternity. I'm so clever, I started a garden... what did I get myself into??? I've heard jaded gardeners give up and sigh I should never have started one so big...such a lot to maintain. I'm just going to pull all these plants out and put in a parking lot. I hear you can make a lot of money charging people to park on your lawn, especially in Auckland.
