After moving from an overwhelmingly large yard to something more manageable twelve year ago, my return to gardening has been gradual. There is no landscape design or grand vision for a garden. My flower beds were already here or evolved to make mowing easier.

Limited growing space and a pages-long list of must-haves keep me from planting anything permanent. Annuals allows me to change things up every year which makes soil improvement easier. Along the way, I’ve learned a lot about where things will and won’t grow.

Rather than planting vegetables this fall, I decided to leave beds bare to work on improving the soil. I can put maybe two bags of mulch in the trunk of my VW convertible. Friends with trucks have helped, but I still have to drag the damn bags around and spread the contents.

Age has sucked the joy from all that work. I heard an ad for a local mulch delivery business (MulchHereNow). They came out and gave me a very reasonable quote for everything I wanted, including installation, all in one day.

Sign me up! I also called a fence company to repair parts of my privacy fence. Turns out, most of the fence is too far gone to repair, and even then, I’d need a new one in a few years. Good thing my yard is small!

Since the crew would tromp all over my flower beds, I decided to do the fence first. They were scheduled to come the day before Helene came through Georgia, but it rained. The mulch team was to come next week.

The absence of color in the yard last spring frankly sucked. This coming spring will be different. My goal is to have the new fence installed and all the beds top-dressed and mulched so I can plant winter- and spring-blooming flowers before the end of October.

Given all the fallen trees in Athens, people with damaged fences may get scheduled before me. No problem. I’m anxious to have the work done, but still have plenty of time. As always, I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for stopping by.