Garden 'til your arms fall off.

I spent this afternoon edging my perennial flower beds. This means using the edger to pop up the grass about 2 inches out from where the bed is, try to free as much soil as possible from the sod - throw the sod in the cart, and continue until your arms are about to fall off.

The amount of time it takes to remove the soil from the edgings is well spent contemplating what the perennials are about to overtake their neighbors and who needs moved or divided. And the front center bed has a few challenges there. First - it is getting too wide to easily access the center to weed it. Second - it has irises, peonies, lillies, and a shrub in it. Third - most labels are gone from the bed - and I'm seeing a lot of little seedlings that may be a volunteer or a weed. Also my tree peony in this bed, is a lot bigger this year than last - so the perennials I placed halfway between it and the iris - are being overtaken by the tree peony. And there is also a cluster of non-orange daylillies quite close to the peony that will have to be moved. (I need to remember to label the daylillies this year when they bloom.)

The iris are starting to bloom.

But the Merit doesn't seem to have wiped out the borers - even though I applied it much earlier this year - I'm starting to see spotting on the leaves. And I'm wondering what it does to earthworms. So... I guess when my current bag is gone - perhaps I'm done with this method, though my irises have survived better with the Merit - I was hoping that they would be free of problems with an early application...