Demulching

It's finally time to do something about the pile of mulch that was protecting the potted bamboos on my driveway this winter.

I could have done this a month or more ago, but honestly, I knew it just wasn't going to be fun. Also, I did not know where I'd be putting all of this extra mulch -- I've got extra piles of it already in the back.

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There's not much to explain in this post, other than I used a fork to move the very wet mulch at first, then a "scoop" type shovel once I got down to the driveway.

There were so many big earthworms in the mulch, even near the top!

I rearranged the pots of bamboo, keeping the same varieties together.

So I got rid of the ugly pile of mulched pots, turning it into a bunch of pots and a slightly less ugly pile of mulch. (Reducing entropy takes work!)

I'm glad I'm done with that task!

Crap. Only halfway done.

This pile contained much larger pots, so a lot more tugging and lifting and effort was involved. Some of these had to be dragged up to the driveway. Ugh. (Dragging them downhill was so much easier.)

This is the nicer mulch:

But on the south side of the pile it was already decomposing quite a bit:

I know where at least one toad spent the winter!

I gave up after getting these partially unburied, as I was getting discouraged -- not to mention tired. Many of these are my marginally-hardy bamboo species, and they didn't look great -- lots of leaf damage. I think I'll get rid of many of these this year.

So although I still have to find a better spot for many of these potted bamboos, and I've got lots of mulch piles around, that was the last of my big-muscle spring chores. I still have plenty of weeding and planting to do, but until I start another big project (rebuild the stream, clear out the log pile, build another bamboo box), I've got it "easy" in the garden.

If only the weather would let me actually do some gardening!

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