Defeat of the Shrub

[primsong]

Spent a good part of yesterday going out on a regular basis to hack at a large dead azalea thing that's as tall as myself, hacking away it's limbs (Arrrr!) and then gradually digging out the root ball (pant, grumble, mutter). Clipped, lopped and chopped off all the roots I could reach, dug and dug and chopped again then soaked the thing with a hose to try to soften it up. The end result looked rather like a meteorite had landed in my yard and inexplicably left a dead shrub in the center of its crater....which then filled with brown goo.

So I'm out there kneeling in the mud poking around in this brown gloppy soup with my loppers, lopping anything I can find by feel and finally got to where the blamed thing would rock back and forth ("schlupp...schluuup...schlupp..."). Stand up, get a good grip on the dead limb-stubs and pull only to be reminded of how bluebells post-blooming invariably turn into bluebell-slime when trod upon, sending me skidding along like a beserk slime-skater hanging onto a wobbly dead shrub. ("Yeeeaaa!") Did I mention this is on a slope?

"Schlooooop....SCHLUP!" At last! At last! The beast is slain! I am Triumphant Gardener!

My daughter, returning from school, comes up the driveway and stops to raise her eyebrows at me. "Shrub!" I offer by way of explanation for my mud-and-green-slimed self. "I conquered it!" I hold up the dripping rootball like the head of some dragon of old.

"Yeah. So I see!" she says and heads into the house with that 'crazy gardener mom at it again' look. My son comes out and says "Wow. How heavy is that thing? Can I carry it?"

No, gardening is not for the meek.

Comments

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

*giggling madly*

Somehow, this reminds me of the climax of The Shining Furrow, with Three wading around in the muddy fractal-crater.

It also reminds me of a shrub we battled a few years back - a juniper, I think. It took four females of varying size and strength, plus several shovels and a reciprocating saw, two or three hours to get it out. I wound up digging all around and underneath it with the chugging saw while my massively strong sisters tugged and pulled.

That was FUN. :D

[primsong.livejournal.com]

Oh gosh, juniper! Our previous house had huge, overgrown junipers all along the walk leading up to the front door that were maybe 5-6 ft. high, it was like navigating a prickly tunnel. One of the first things we did was cut them back as best we could and then yanked them all straight out of the ground with the help of a friend's pickup truck. The ground there was permanently filled with a fibrous network of old juniper roots, I had to build up new soil over it to even plant color-spots. Go you on getting rid of one of those monsters! What did you put in its place?

[curuchamion.livejournal.com]

Sheet plastic, gravel and drainage tile. It was right next to the house and doing Evil Things to the foundation. We have enough trouble with water in the basement, since our garage is oh-so-considerately situated under our house!

(Someday, if I'm unlucky, I'm going to get struck by lightning while clearing out the driveway drain during a massive thunderstorm to prevent our garage from flooding. It's our main woodworking storage area, so that's kind of an essential job, and everyone else has the sense not to volunteer... I like storms.)