Journal Notes...Heat, Snakes, & Weeding

They say when it rains it pours...I wish it would rain here...  The pool's liner is broken and the air conditioner went out.  Oh, and it's June which in my opinion is akin to August...hot, no rain, and very humid.  In any even I opted to do some weeding.  The peacock will be put on hold a bit.  It's hot and hard to keep cool.  So I pulled weeds all yesterday.

A lot of this is boring stuff.  I just took pictures as I progressed.  I could only do a few minutes at a time.  Despite being in the 80s the heat index was 105.  Doesn't take long to drip in sweat.

I was happy about the screen.  Most weeds came through open seams.  The ones that were on top, were easy to pull.

Potato vine?  kind looks like morning glory I allowed to stay but it was choking things.  So I started pulling them.  No worries, it will be back.

I realized I may not need as much mulch as I thought I might, once the weeds were pulled.  I can hear my mother arguing with me now but the mulch causes a medium by which the weeds can root.

Some things required a shovel versus the weeding spade thingy? :)

It does look nicer.  I have had two visitors this week look at the gardens (they were not here because of them).  They both commented on the same thing.  The sky pencils.  ...they loved them..

I already weeded and remulched this area only to have them come back.  Should have used preen.

The root system behind this pittosporum is a never ending battle.  I'll learn one day.

Not sure what those green fuzzy weeds are but they are tougher than they look to pull out.

Just an assortment of weeds under the roses.  I have found that grass is the toughest..at least for me.

You can see bare screen but it isn't as thin as you would think.  I think 20 bags may be able to replenish the gardens.

After the weeding is done...the irrigation lines need to be checked.  I have few roses that need to go into the ground, they need to be pruned and fed.

I have aged compost.  I am worried about seeds in the compost becoming  a problem.  Probably no more of one than what I have now.  130 roses is expensive not to use alternate means.

I bought some hand shears? from Dollar General.  They lasted an hour.  Not all the tools at DG is bad.  I do like the watering wand they have.

My automatic irrigation has six zone.  Right now, only five are being used.  This area is supposed to be zone five, but I am attempted to make it a sprinkler that I can keep the cat from using the rose bed as a litter box or torturing small animals like birds in the rose garden.  Still pondering.

It does look much better.

I will probably zone this for irrigation but I kinda want zinnia here too.  I do love the constant hummingbird visits.

The path between two sectors of the rose garden is screened but not very flat.  It is easy to trip.  No, I do not want to rescreen it but I may use rocks..

Gonna have to use bigger loppers.

The water timer with three valves does not seem to be working right.  This area needs to be addressed

Needs to be mowed, but I would rather not distract from the weeding.

Magnolias are still in bloom.

Not sure what this is.  Looks like whiskers.

Would like to formalize this path some how or make it an avenue.

Much better.  Still more to do though.

The pool has been drained for over a week now but there is some water at the bottom.  As a result, in the mornings we get a lot of surprises.  The other day we found this cottonmouth.  After the flood we found four in the pool.  One got away, and the others we shot.  I felt bad about it but it's poisonous and in close proximity.  I do not want any more ER trips than necessary and it was deeply concerning that they keep showing up at the pool.    Someone at the museum told me snakes can not hear.  I think they can.  I think what happens is that the frogs chirp and that attracts them.  Technically snakes don't have ears but they hear vibrations.  That is how we hear too if you think about it.  In any event, after killing this one we got a king snake the next day.  A little over snakes lately.  Odd they can't get out.

Frogs