Liriope

I have a tenuous relationship with the groundcover liriope.  The only reason I still have this plant is that it is so hard to dig out - and divide - and kill.  It spreads.  It is not terribly interesting for most of the summer.  I was originally attracted to it because I thought it  would lend my garden a spare, sophisticated look - the type of look  I associate with modern buildings and art museums.

I recently had a change of heart about liriope.  My husband and I were visiting our daughter in Washington DC over Labor Day weekend.  Because the weather was good, and DC is a very walkable city, we strolled through lots of neighborhoods.  The charming row houses all had nicely tended gardens - and many of them had liriope.

    However, the liriope was not planted in perennial borders, but as a groundcover with shrubs.  "That's what I can do with this plant!"  And that is what I will do with it next spring - when I hope to have enough arm  strength to dig them up and plant them in my front borders.

What is the sound of one hand weeding?

The same as the sound of two hands weeding.  I posed this question because I had surgery on my right rotater cuff in late June.  Since then, I have been able to do very little weeding.  Weeding with my non-dominant left hand wasn't very effective, and I kept succumbing to the temptation to weed with my right hand. Bad idea.

I have learned the hard way that if I weed, I am going to regret it; either by re-injuring my shoulder, or just causing a lot of pain and soreness.  I do not want to have to go through wearing a sling for slightly under 24 hours a day for another 6 weeks.

And so I am embarrassed to show you a picture of one of my very aggressive weed patches.  Amongst the weeds you can barely make out some hostas and daylilies.

The problem with weeds is that they destroy beauty in the garden.  A beautiful garden does not confuse the eye.  Weeds obscure the plants you want to see, largely because there are usually several types of weeds growing in one area.  I suppose that you could have a beautiful garden full of crabgrass - just as long as the crabgrass was the only plant in that area, and did not take over the whole bed or border.

Despite the fact that I have not been able to weed this summer, I have one border that looks pretty good.  I designed this border a few years ago with a pretty well thought-out design.  The front is comprised of a straight line of decorative herbs planted in groups of three.  Behind these I used alternating equilateral triangles - with sides about thirty inches long - to place perennials in.  Each triangle has one type of plant.   Using a pattern consistently throughout this, or any, garden, helps the observers eye both settle down quickly, and be led  from area to area in the garden.