I like that Jill, very well written and real. Now tell us about the new discoveries and how you plan to move from "all done" to "done again."
I've been away or I would have written earlier

I haven't been keeping up.....

*Thanks, Jill* !!! [Just pulling things back together from falling-down guffahs!! Had to catch my breath before I could type. Then reread your note so I could try to reply, and the guffahs recurred.... ]

>I also did some ruthless shovel pruning. No more sentimental gardening for me. If the plant was struggling it was going, no more trying to save every little thing I had ever planted.Congrats! Thou art now a true gardener! [And I love the concept of 'shovel pruning'. Been there. Done that. Never had such a dignified wording for it, though. Can I borrow that term for private use? .

Thank you so much for the Pinkie and the Brain reference..... I was grinning while reading your post until I hit that. Then I totally lost it! Yes!

>And the dh wanted to know what I was going to do in the garden now that it is "all done".[Guffahs!!]

Thanks so much for this, Jill!

Linda, I got the shovel pruning term from the rose forum. I admit it took me awhile to figure out it meant to remove the plant. Thanks, Tony, I feel very flattered.

I have done a little more ruthless removal, but it has been too hot and humid to really go at it. All the common spiderwort is gone (of course it is not, but the big clumps are gone). I don't even miss it. I reread "We Made A Garden" by Marjory Fish over the weekend and was inspired to deadhead and cut back with a vengence.

I did some research on a tree I had received when I was on the shade tree commisison for our city. At a Tree City USA shindig a few years back, a local company had free trees for us. We had our choice of golden rain tree or Katsura (sp). I thought I had the golden rain tree, but as it hadn't produced any thing remotely "golden" I thought I better check. I have been deceived. I have a honey locust.

I have nothing against honey locust except that now I have a honey locust planted between a tulip tree and an European Larch. 3 soon to be too too big trees. Which to remove is now the question. I stand in the side yard and stare. I walk around the outside of the yard and stare and mutter to myself, coffe cup in hand, trailed by 3 cats. Hmmm. The tulip is in the middle of the side yard, my "speciman tree". It has a kink in the trunk (never buy at a big box store again), and it leans a little (I now always use a level when I plant trees or have the dh out there with his good eye). But it throws shade just exactly where I want it. Locust tree is nice, dappled shade, close to propery line, as is the Larch. Really I should take out the locust because it is too close to the Larch and the tulip because it is leaning and crooked. If I do it this year, I can probably do it myself. At least the Locust. I don't think I have the will to take out 2 trees.

I dithered for years whether I wanted a speciman tree in the center of the side lot or a formal pool. I finally decided on the tree because of cost and I like shade gardening. Maybe now I will get my formal pool, though cost is still a hinderence, especially now with ds in college.

What to do, what to do. I see more dithering and muttering in the side yard.

:) I'm in the third year in my (our) first house, and the back yard is about the size of my parent's swimming pool (they ran screaming from Levittown in '63, drove until they hit dirt roads, and bought a half-finished contemporary, sold the sports car to pay for the pool...and never budged)

so I'm now at the point where the black-spotted roses and the mildew'd grape are gone, and I can turn my attention to things like admitting that the garden ain't big enough for ditch lillies and people at the same time (shipped them off to a lady with none) and that spiderwort is a shade plant to keep it from playing Brain to the daylily's Pinky (moved some to mom's house in the shade, traded the rest to a lady for irises and ferns)

so reading your account made me feel better :)

I will warn you that a mature honey locust is a stunning display for three weeks- and a damned nuisance the rest of the year. they reseed like a norway maple (not to mention the seed pods themselves) drop twigs on a daily basis...and they're brittle, and I've seen them as young as 20 and dropping limbs on unsuspecting home owners.

I was thinking about trying a bonsai idea on one by sticking it in a bath tub to keep it from getting TOO big- then decided I was safer with bamboo there. bamboo doesn't spray seeds, and you can SEE the runners trying to escape, and can head them off at the pass ;)