I know: you’re floored that I even attempted, right? But here it is, the first weekend of Spring and the sun was out (unlike some parts of the country) and it was supposed to be warm. So as soon as Iwas up (which wasn’t early, I confess), I went looking for my abandoned gardening tools. When winter set, I hid everything, partly because it was winter (and cold and wet) and partly because Murphy had been gardening for me. This is how he left my garden:
That’s the weed guard all pulled up and left heaped with the peony cage somewhat skewed. My peony is bravely coming back up. He also dug up all the bulbs I planted (anenomes, crocuses, aroids) except these two:
Amazing to think I have two tiny crocuses blooming despite the dog! But as you can see, my flower beds probably need some weeding done.
I had a goal: clear out two flower beds: the one along the north fence and the one next to the garage. That leaves the island, the south fence, my prayer garden, and all of the front yard. I didn’t want to hurt my back too much with my first foray into gardening this year! And since Murphy was off to see his trainer this morning, I figured I had a few hours of gardening time before he returned home.
Murphy is going to a trainer! I found this trainer online and hoped my husband would agree that Murphy needed training. To my surprise, not only did he agree, but he made an appointment and went down to see the trainer and they shook hands and Murphy became a client. Whitewater Gun Dog Training is about an hour’s drive from here. Unfortunately, what I imagined training would be and what it is are two very disparate things: Murphy’s training has been strictly as a gun dog. Obedience comes later. Much later. Not good for my garden.
But he was gone, so I hunkered down and started pulling up the early weeds. In the distance, I heard a voice over a megaphone count: “five-four-three-two-one!” This was followed by a fire siren and honking horns. Easter egg hunt! Ah yes: a rare dry day in the Portland metro area on the Easter weekend: they could actually have an egg hunt in the park that is a block from our home. I briefly hoped no little Highly Sensitive Child was over there, feeling completely overwhelmed. I like the idea of egg hunts, but I remember the one and only one I ever did as a kid, and it wasn’t pretty. I tried to keep them low-key for my kids so they would have fun.
The robins are back! As I worked my way down the flower bed, carefully extracting weeds and weed roots from budding peonies, three robins had a little territorial spat in the camellia bush. Ah: it *is* Spring when the first robins arrive!
I plopped slugs and weeds into the bucket, then transported those to the compost recycle bin (our compost pile is too deep, besides: I can send my weeds to a city recycler and add a few slugs, too. It’s one way to get rid of slugs). And hour into it, and I was 2/3’s the way done with the first bed – and I heard tires on gravel. Murphy was home early! Argh!
Don put him in his kennel so I could finish my flower beds – and so he could get the first haying (er, mowing) out of the way. A 100×100′ lot takes a lot of mowing in a season.
Here’s what I got done today:
I should have divided the irises last fall, but I didn’t. The edge of the bed is uneven because I only weeded: i didn’t bother with edging. Patches of weed cloth show through where Murphy has scraped the mulch off. But the peonies have cages around them, the daisies and asters are coming up nicely, and the little weeds are held at bay for a short while!
The triangle by the garage is fenced off. Our first dog, Sadie, had a thing about rubbing against the tree peony, so I fenced it off to protect that. Works to keep Murphy out, too – but only now that he is too big to go through the fence. For awhile, he could crawl through and he chewed on the tree peony, hauled off the copper that protects the tiger lily from slugs, and knocked over all the peony cages. I replaced the copper barrier, fixed the peony cages, weeded the grass and broad-leaf weeds (dandelions and thistles), but left the asters, grape hyacinth, variegated myrtle, peonies, and wild violets. I also noted the dracunculus vulgaris is coming up nicely.
It looks barren, but to a gardener, it looks GREAT: no weeds!
I stopped there. My lower back aches a little tonight; I know that was a good place to stop. Two beds down and maybe some nice weather will repeat on a weekend and I’ll get more done then. I’m looking forward to more flowers. Right now, I have the crocuses and some jonquils up:
And the violets and variegated myrtle. There’s a bumblebee in the middle of the myrtle:
Yes, the little bees are out! I should be excited (I am), but that also means we have to have the Benadryl and epipen ready for Murphy.
As a last photo, here’s Murphy retrieving a bird in our yard. 
As my husband said, “Good retrieve, Murphy, but I think the lawn ornament is going to be a bit tough to chew.”
