I got in my new edging blade that goes with the kick sod cutter I bought last week. I will say, has a bit steeper of a learning curve then the regular sod cutter and I had to fix the first row I did with a shovel. Because it's cutting less, you would expect it to be easier to kick along then the regular sod cutter, but it is actually a bit harder. Still glad I bought it because I can't cut that angled trench consistently with a shovel to save my life. I kicked along and cut a nice trench around 2 of my 10' beds. When I got to the third one, I realized the way I made my earlier beds is going to come back to bite me a bit.
I made those earlier beds by solarizing and then spreading weed barrier and mulch. The problem is that the edger snags that all a bit and shifts it OR if I cut a bit more to the outside, then it doesn't get all of the grass. Debating rolling up the weed barrier a bit and making a sweep with the regular sod cutter OR adding a bit more weed barrier and taking the barrier down into the trench. Leaning towards adding a stripe of barrier down into the trench. Guess I will decide and start that tomorrow.
Switching out the blade requires the use of a couple of wrenches- none I have are a perfect fit. In other words, now I'm sort of locked into finishing all the edges before I circle back to the last couple of beds that need to be made. I rearranged my design a bit to have a few plants left for a more symmetrical bed with the others I've made. Otherwise though- my current beds are planted other than the borders of irises.
Left to plant now, other than a bajillion irises and a couple seedling trays of hollyhock and echinacea, I just have 3 roses, 2 peonies, 1 clematis, 2 astilbe and 2 elderberries. That feels great though- I added so much this year- and that's most of the expensive stuff safely in the ground. The two elderberries I dug up yesterday as they just were not thriving at all where they had been planted. I wanted to plant them near the driveway- which is where I planted them last year. BUT, I'm thinking maybe the previous owner of our home used a lot of salt along the driveway. Anyhow, these things have not grown at all- they are no bigger than when I planted them last June. The other elderberries I planted elsewhere in the yard are 36" shrubs now and these are sticks with 6 leaves.
Should be a nice day tomorrow- spouse has promised to follow me around with the wagon picking up my cut sod- so we'll see how long he lasts out there. I think I have 6 more square beds to cut edges around, then the big round and the front bed along with the side bed. Might do the big round tomorrow if he actually helps just because it's so daunting to look at. The smaller square beds are something I can do in a half hour with short breaks.
In terms of beds I'm still hoping to add- I hope to add one more 10' square bed to finish my 3x3 grid of those - that's where the last few roses/peonies/astilbe/clematis will go with a border of SDB/BB iris. I'll probably add a 24" wide 50 foot stripe in front of the rambler row for the overflow irises. Then I want to make a longer, more freeflowing style bed that widens and tapers to the side of my grid of beds. That won't get planted until next year- but I learned the hard way this year that you cannot save infrastructure changes for spring. Too much can go wrong, it can take too long to thaw, too much rain and so on and pretty soon all your preordered plants are coming in and you then get to spend the rest of the year frantically trying to catch up. Nope. Not going to do that to myself next year. I'm going to set myself up for a good year next year- not a bunch of nonsense like this year.
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