Honeysuckle

I remember how beautiful and rare I thought honeysuckle was, when I was a girl growing up in West Texas.  When I moved to Virginia, it was one the plants I knew, and I wanted some in my yard.  However, I had trouble finding any to buy.  I also learned that here in Virginia, as well as many other parts of the country, it's not exactly something people seek out.  Rather, it's sort of an invasive weed.

It's beautiful, and it smells heavenly.  I feel a little drunk, actually, everytime I smell it.  Here, our honeysuckly grows huge and vigorous, and it's omnipresent.  In fact, I didn't have to do anything or spend any money to get some honeysuckle of my own.  I didn't even have to take cuttings.  It found me, and is taking over our back fence.  I must say that I don't mind a bit. 

I also don't mind the clovers that grow in our lawn, nor the purple flowers, nor the yellow flowers, nor the pretty tiny white daisies that show themselves each year.  And I love dandilions.  As long as its pretty and not prickly, it's welcome in my lawn.  If the bunnies and squirrels eat it instead of my vegetables, all the better.

Using compost and cardboard as a weed barrier

We had 3 cubic yards of compost delivered today!  That's actually the smallest amount of compost I've ever had delivered.  I get organic mushroom compost, which is supplied by a local company.  Last year, I actually did not order compost, although I had some left over from the year before last.  But I do like to add quite a bit to my beds each year, so I am very happy to have it again. 

I completed my first project with the compost: as a topdressing and mulch for my front flower garden.  Now, this area is really terrible.  I did a good job of digging out the bermuda grass and weeds the year we moved in, but there were a couple of seasons where I didn't weed at all (hard to weed when your toddler keeps running away from you), and it just got awful again.  So, I surrounded my annual seedlings and perinneals with paper and cardboard and spread compost on top of that as a mulch.  This is extremely effective in my vegetable garden, and I think it will be in my garden as well.  It looks quite nice right now. 

The bermuda grass is making me so crazy that I may have to resort to a chemical solution, but for now I'm going to give this a go.  I may add a wood mulch next month, so I can repeat the process, adding an additional weed barrier.  I find that the paper/cardboard is far more effective against bermuda grass and other weeds than a weed fabric.  I'll update on how it goes.  I'm hoping for a pretty flower garden this year, which I haven't had for the past 2 seasons!