Finally – here we are to the story of my not-as-planned weekend.

The original plan was to spend Saturday, which was supposed to be nice and comfortable weatherwise in the garden – mostly just weeding. And then Sunday, which was supposed to be hot, sticky, and disgusting, inside sewing – finishing Burton’s quilt, making a couple more blocks for my red quilt, and maybe starting on something new.

Saturday got started off as planned more or less. Dave and I were up fairly early, taking some yard waste to the transfer station (branches and stuff that’s too big for my yard composter). We ran a few errands while we were out, so I got into the gardens a little later than planned.

I’m not obsessive about weeding. I don’t worry about getting every little last sprout that shouldn’t be there -but I do like the garden to look tended to, and it was to far past that point for my liking. I started out front because that’s where most of the shade was. Eventually, I worked my way across, almost to the holly bushes, and decided there was an issue I could no longer ignore.

I believe I mentioned earlier this year, that the foxgloves had reseeded. I decided to let the seedlings do their thing in situ, and then move them about later when the time came.

Well dear readers… the time had come….

ALLLLLL of those are foxglove seedlings. And that’s not even all of them. There was probably double that amount spread out around the left side of the front garden.

So weeding got set aside, I got out some garden pots and started potting the little guys up so I could decided where to put them later.

I dug and potted and dug and potted and then I ran out of pots!

And I still had a pile left in the garden! (There’s some pink sage mixed in there too because it re-seeded as well!)

I needed somewhere to put them, ASAP.

There was one place in the garden left that was still “wild” and needed to be developed.

It was the space behind the holly, but in front of the new gate… basically, just a weed patch. It gets some morning sun, but overall is mostly shade. But… foxgloves are forest edge plants… it could be the ideal plant for the space. It’s very similar to under the willows by the shed… and the fox glove there went crazy this year.

So I got weeding and repotting got set aside while I went to work clearing out all that… mess. It included quite a few maple and mulberry seedlings that were established enough that they needed to be dug out. Eventually though I did get it down to bare ground. But by then it was dinner time.

I was in no shape to cook, so I took Dave out for a burger, and we ended up at Home Depot. While there I grabbed a couple more Hostas, another Astilbe and a big Sedum that were all on clearance, as well as some stones for another project (more on that another day). And by then, the day was shot.

I knew I was going to have to do more work on Sunday, cutting into sewing time. I got up bright and early to tackle it, before things got to hot. And as I prepared the ground for the new plants, I noticed that the downspout, which had previosuly been hidden by holly and weeds, was broken and needed to be fixed and directed away from the foundation.

Off to the local hardware store we went! We also picked up some mulch (which Home Depot didn’t have the night before.) By the time we got back it was past noon – and far too hot work outside.

I retreated to the sewing studio to finish Burton’s quilt. And after dinner, though it was still hot, I headed back outside to finally finish the area up.

I planted the Hostas, the Astilbe and the Sedum, and all those little green sprouts…

Those are all little wee foxgloves. I probably planted about 40 of them in that space. If this experiment works, this areas is going to be amazing when they bloom next year!

You can see, all I could get was red mulch… I’m not thrilled with that, but I can cover it with black mulch next year. It looks tidy and will help keep the weeds down while the foxglove get rooted.

And you might have spied something else in that corner…

I’ve named him Todd. He was at Home Depot and I couldn’t resist. Luckily, Dave didn’t have any problem with him following us home. He likes tortoises just as much as I do!

And so… while the weekend didn’t go as planned, I’m still pretty pleased with what I managed to accomplish. And I can always finish that weeding this weekend!