More unfinished business

I have knocked off for the day without managing to complete the line-trimming of the Bunny Lawn. This is where I have planted a heap of native trees in the last three years, but which suffers first in a drought. As a result they have struggled to get established and are mostly still less than 1m tall.

It is also the area in which I planted a couple of hundred daffodil and narcissus bulbs soon after I moved in. The golden display is gradually improving each spring.

Normally I line-trim it at the start of November, once the daffs have died down and before the grass has gone too bonkers. However a combination of rain and exam supervision thwarted me this year, and I have only just got round to tackling it.

The grasses are higher than the trees in places, and I am glad that I marked the natives with long canes, and some in tree-guards. Without those indicators of their location I would have cut through several of them today.

It was hard hot sweaty work. The temperatures are ramping up: mid-20s today; high-20s for the next two or three days. So tomorrow I will be up and at it again as early as possible while it is still in the teens. 

My cut-off point is 26C. That's when I have a cool shower and collapse on the window seat with all the windows open to capture any available breeze.

If I didn't have any lawns or other areas of grass, life would be very cruisy right now. The main task is to keep up with the watering. And this is the reason for planting lots of natives, because in due course they will be dense enough to outcompete most of the grasses, relieving me of this hard labour. 

I just wish they'd hurry up and grow! To speed up the process I am going to interplant the existing natives with extras. That is something I can start once the line-trimming is finished, and once the temperature drops a wee bit.

Watch this space.