I have some landscaping quirks that really make my husband shake his head. He says the quirks border on neurotic. Well, call me Neurotic Nelly because I ain’t stoppin’. What kind of quirks, you may be asking?
For starters, I prefer to trim the grasses that grow near the garden edges with garden shears.
Yes, scissors. You know, instead of the gas powered trimmer that sits in the garage. It’s more time consuming, of course, but I think it does a nicer job of creating a neat look with no risk of hitting a part of the garden you might not want weed-whacked. Each time I pull my garden shears out, Matt laughs. I shoot him a dirty look and tell him his yard looks beauuuuuutiful.
My second neurotic habit relates to that little yellow weed that pops up all summer long. Dandelions can’t be cut with garden shears.
Although you can kill them with a spray chemical, uprooting them with a classic human-powered dandelion puller is all-natural and waaaay more satisfying. So, that’s how I rid my yard of those pesky weeds. Last spring I went wine tasting. After returning home and feeling quite happy, I was so annoyed by the yellow ladies in the yard that I pulled out thirty or forty at once. Matt says I was grunting while I did it. I can’t quite remember if that was true.
My third quirk stems from quite possibly the most annoying Fall nuisance in this yard. These.
It’s a nut. Of some sort. I don’t know the name of the tree from which it drops*, and I don’t know the name of the nut**. I do know that every time I mow the lawn, I step on hundreds of these little nuts and by doing so, I push them into our lawn, inhibiting healthy grass growth. It drives me… you guessed it… crazy. It drives me crazy. Every couple of days, I bend down and pick them out of the grass one by one, tossing them into the nearby wheelbarrow, being careful to cover my head when I hear one flying through the sky from up above. This is 1 day worth of nuts.
It may not look like a lot, but it is. Believe me. Every other day I do this, because I am a Neurotic Nelly. I wish I were joking.
If I had children, this is a task I would pass onto them***. My father passed tasks like this onto me and my sisters our entire childhood. We were constantly picking things off of the lawn. Sticks, dog droppings, leaves, tulip tree droppings… you name it, my father had us cleaning it up (most of the time). I will say, it did help to build character. Maybe it helped to make me the crazy lawn person I am today. Clearly, I need children to do this for me. Then, I’d be able to focus on my garden shearing and dandelion pulling!
Do you have any neurotic habits around the house or yard? I’d like to know I’m not alone…
*After lots of Googling, I can confidently identify this tree as a Mockernut Hickory tree.
**So duh, the nut would be a Mockernut.
***I know what Harrison will be doing every Fall!