Cleaning Up After the "Winter Blast"

J and I spent a couple of hours this afternoon cleaning up the front yard after the "winter blast" on Friday. The beloved Claw came yesterday and took away the chopped up pine tree, so that left plenty of room on the street for more garden debris. I cut back almost all of the plants--the agastache, penstemon, incarvillea, coreopsis. Our eucalyptus shed all over the place too, and leaves and branches from all over the neighborhood seemed to have congregated in my front yard. So now there's a new mound of stuff waiting for a visit from the Claw. I told J that we might receive a personal visit from the Claw driver, informing us that he would not be able to come every day to pick up my latest leavings.

But it's not often that I have this much debris. I usually do a big clean-up in early spring, when I toss the plants I decided to reprieve in the fall. Then I do another clean-up at the end of the summer, tossing the plants that failed to perform during the spring and summer. I rarely do a lot of work in the winter, even though I should, and the summer is spent watering, watering, watering. Having cleaned up much of the front yard, I am, however, notifying some plants that a good performance this year will be required or the refrain "dead plant walking" will be heard as the poor subject is transported to the garden waste pile.