Kickoff!

Today was kickoff day for my 2025 gardening season at the historic cemetery. I arrived soooo ready! I pulled up with my new green folding wagon with the telescoping handle, front pivoting wheels, room for a full sized bin to hold trimmings and plucked weeds with room to spare for my trimming tools and my gloves, plus a mesh pouch on the side to hold water bottles and stuff a hat when I start to warm up. I was all set!!! I also gave myself permission to wear a new pair of tennis shoes. Comes a day when worn out, beat up shoes don’t do you any favors. I am at that age.
This is the cleanest these two will ever be, because they are both awesome and will be used like crazy. They made my work so much more pleasant!

My goal for today was to get the black-eyed Susans cut back. Instead, I did all the cutback for the things I left for the birds (and bunnies) – the sedums, black-eyed susans, daylilies that still had seed pods – it all got cut back to make way for 2025 growth. And almost all the ground cover got cleaned up. All except a taller version that needs to be seriously cut back. Underneath is already new growth, but the rest was dead, dead, dead.
This is the new growth on one I trimmed.

I usually put coffee grounds on the townhouse garden as each plant comes up, especially the hostas, so I may do that at the historic cemetery garden to keep the slugs down again this year. But it shouldn’t need a boost like the townhouse plants. The mulch should be far superior.

Tomorrow is sedum cutback day at the townhouse. And then the watching begins.