I know other gardeners might look at this guy and flinch, but I remember 20 years ago when we moved into this house the yard was full of grasshoppers, so full several would jump every time you walked anywhere. They slowly disappeared as we killed the grass, and the trees got bigger and bigger shading it out. I'm quite happy to see them return, though I'll be happier if I start seeing some preying mantis as well.
Uggh. I've been working the last two weeks with some gardening in the afternoons, which hasn't left much time for other things. The strawberries are moving along. Last week I had to repot all my seedlings due to crappy starter soil (even though it was the same soil type I use every year) it was growing algae on top and not holding any moisture in the middle. No idea how that combo was working. They've mostly recovered and I've stopped dreading having to buy starts. And I've accepted that I can only use ridiculously good potting soil to both avoid Monsanto and keep the plants happy. I had a lot of losses over the winter with iffy potting soil from last year. It was bad enough I've re potted most of the survivors bare root and they're happy about it.
Since the trees came down last year in the fall this is my first year with true full sun. Most of the plants are happy, the hostas I just moved last year however are slowly getting dug up and moved before they burn. A few will stay, but most are being moved to the one shady section of the yard. To make the sun a problem it didn't rain much at all in April, and actually yesterday was the first rain of May. I'd like several more days of rain so I can fill the water buckets and stop having to hose down everything twice a day to keep it from wilting under the sun. The rain should also cut that wildfire risk they weather forecasters keep harping about.
I also caved and mulched the ornamental beds this Spring, partially because of the sun but also to make weeding more obvious. By the end of the year the grass in the beds is normally so thick I can't find what's supposed to be in there. I'm trying to stop it early this year so I can see where I can add plants and what is coming up where. I have a few plants still to move, and if our neighbors replace the fence like they said they were I can then plant a few shrubs I've been keeping in pots due to a lack of locations to put them.
The one other thing in the works is doing two more large pots in the front and moving the much abused front yard hostas into them. They had a wood border but I ripped it out last month so we have no wood touching dirt in the yard to tempt the termites. I also ripped out the 15 foot wide by three foot tall pile of cut tree limbs we'd been storing. I removed them because the neighbors might replace the fence, and they would have been in the way. Plenty of them had disintegrated to mush anyway. (Okay, Mom was worried about termites in them too, though I never found any.)
