Its been a long year....

and it has been way too quiet while not being here.

I am trying to get my flower gardens back into shape, but its tough, grass took over last year, and I am having to remove it all at the cost of some of my non-bulb plants. I noticed last week that I have horsetail through my 2 other front gardens, great, remove the grass, double the horsetail. I am trying to find some naturalistic boundary that I can put up to keep the lawn from infiltrating the garden.

The crocus in the lawn came up faithfully. They aren't as dense as I would like them, but they are beautiful in the lawn. I need to figure out how to plant more bulbs in the lawn, hopefully spaced reasonably.

One aspect of my mental health issues is quite relevant here. I used to be quite manic about my plants, both outside and in my succulent collection, I acquired too much, too fast, too weird, and probably for the wrong zone. This is really true of my succulent collection, where half of my plants I should never have gotten. The outdoor gardens should never have been planted as densely as I did, the look good, but are impossible to maintain and where that plant is after a few months is hard to guess.

But now I have the opposite problem, its hard to keep me working in the garden, which should bring some happiness. Usually, I am only in the garden for 10-15 minutes.

Before I start tossing it, I have 2 or 3 cubic yards of unfinished compost that I need to find a place for. Its either going in my yard waste week by week, or if some one wants part or all. Its pretty decent stuff, it just never generated any heat, and got nowhere.

You sound overwhelmed. I've heard this many times. Think about the garden in small, manageable sections that you can work on in the 10-15 minutes at a time. You'll probably get more satisfaction after a portion of the garden is up to date. Change one of the smaller beds around to some new plants or new design. Shopping always perks me up. You'll find it's a bit uplifting. I'm dealing with similar but for a different reason. My garden was sprayed with herbicide a few times and much of it died. I kinda gave up. I'm going to rake it up tomorrow and atleast have it look semi-maintained. I use a flat spade to do an edger gutter which makes it easier to keep the grass from encroaching on the beds and collects leaves and debris which is easier to rake up.

A-Dog -- good to hear from you again. I agree with Growin, just focus on about a 3' section and perhaps have a goal to uncover a favorite plant and give it some clear ground. Welcome it back to the world, then mulch it heavily so you can move on to another spot and not worry about weeds coming back. I tend to follow either sun or shade (depending on the weather) and end up with a very spotty looking spring clean-up, but it eventually merges together. Sometimes just a garden walk-about is enough.

Hey Analog Dog!! It's good to see you back. I love your idea for crocuses in the lawn. What a cheery sort of thing to see popping up this time of year. I think it is the sign of a creative gardener to try things out, maybe coming up with a great combination, maybe too close together or not quite compatible sometimes...but always experimenting. The great thing about a garden is you can change things if you want to. I ditto the others, take your garden renewal in small, manageable sections, and use lots of mulch, or you may get overwhelmed again. Is it not possible to use your compost for mulch? It might be better in the middle of the pile.

Another jolly addition to the lawn is English daisies. When you mow them, they just pop back up with more flowers.

I have done some 3 foot sections in the garden, and when they are done in a garden, I plan to mulch them. I have a section or 2 in one garden, and a similar amount in two other gardens. I am really nuts over all the horsetail coming up. What can I do with that?

Yeah, I am overwhelmed at the present time. Its just too much some days. Like today, for some reason I woke up depressed, and by 1 or 2 pm it had taken me over. Haven't wanted to do too much all day. And I am trying to get out of it all the time. Its part of the reason that I dropped by DG tonight. Maybe it would improve my mood.

There's a little bit of info on horsetails in this pdf: http://extension.oregonstate.edu/catalog/pdf/pnw/pnw105.pdf
There's a few thoughts here: http://www.terrylove.com/forums/showthread.php?7357-How-to-kill-horsetail&s=9166e5669d14eb337f169f90b2a74e09

I have heard that horsetail do not like lime, as they prefer an acidic soil. I have them in one area, and I just keep nipping them off at the base. It doesn't get rid of them entirely, but it does slow them down.

So it sounds like I should treat it like any other weed when I am weeding. They are just thick in two garden beds.