Down and dirty

This weekend, a little late season neighborly fence construction had me and DRS back in the yard.



This thicket of bushes, originally a stand of mock orange, offered asylum to errant maple seedlings and invasives such as Japanese honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) and Japanese knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum). It sloped down over underground springs. Birds nested inside the mess of branches.

However, in order to put up a fence, the thicket came down. An expanse of root-riddled muck and a single mock orange remain. DRS and I dug up quanties of fibrous stumps, slipping down the muddy bank as we pulled and pried. It was one of those afternoons when the notion of a lady of leisure cutting perfect flowers from her bountiful garden is very much at odds with the down and dirty reality. Come spring, DRS and I will be back to rooting out the last vestiges of the invasives and, eventually, to planting a row of water-loving summersweet (Clethera).



Come spring, come spring . . . the first snowfall of the season came this morning.