One year later!

High 75 F
Low  54 F

It is so easy to get overwhelmed with gardening chores and priorities must be set.  The GFSD was started over a year ago and it was designed for winter and spring interest as the garden would be hidden in the summer by the corn crop.  The mulch was purchased this spring to keep down the weeds but other, more visible, gardens required more immediate attention.   The GFSD has suffered as the mulch was not put on the bed and since the corn crop failed it is very visible to me as I walk around the garden in the morning. I am not proud of the way it looks. I did  work hard this weekend to try and bring order to disorder.  The EM harrowed the corn patch once again and the plan is to plant a cover crop for the winter. I spent most of Saturday weeding this border.  I know, it looks pretty dismal. In addition, I did have a couple of shrub failures.  The Disanthus cercidifolius, a shrub which seems to have no common name, leafed out this spring but a late frost shriveled the leaves and it never put out another flush. I will get another as it has a lovely cercis/redbud like leaf and beautiful plum fall coloration.  The other two deaths in the border were two out of three Microbiota decussata which is a lovely shade loving evergreen ground cover.  Oh well, spit happens.  Don't you love to get dirty in the garden?  We have had quite a bit of rain lately so the weeds came up easily but some of them were pretty mighty.  The after shots were taken on Sunday. I worked on Sunday and the EM mulched the bed. It needs just a touch of raking and a more well defined edge but it looks considerably better. Tucker loves to lie in new mulch. Now I have to start thinking about extending the 'river of bulbs' in this bed. Is anyone else thinking of bulbs this time of year?