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CULT: + garden "helper"

Happy Independence Day to all!  The rain which has been threatening, but not delivering, for several days has now been dumped on us all at once and has driven me inside where I can spend some time online without guilt.  We've just had a couple of hours of one "frog drownder" after another.  The new raised beds in the back yard are still a couple of inches above water, but parts of the older ones are submerged.  All in all, though, no complaints.  This is one time I banked on the weather and won.  Have been digging several hundred plants for the last few days to transfer from a poorly drained plot to a new better-drained one.  At the same time, the new raised beds prepared for them, all but one of which had been treated with Preen, were sprouting morning glories and mimosas, which Preen doesn't control.  (Snapshot does control morning glories and mimosa, but isn't safe to use on beds into which even adult transplants will soon be made.  I can give more information about this product if anyone is interested.)  So, I used yesterday morning's early calm to zap those beds with Roundup.  This morning, after early church and breakfast out, I was still able to Preen the last bed and dig a few more clumps just before the rain hit.  I had also had to square off (i.e., widen) the surfaces of a couple of those new beds, and they needed a good rain to make the surface soil "set" well on the old.  Well  --  they just got it!
 
Meantime, it's been fun watching the new crop of chipmunks establish their individual territories.  One (see photo) has laid claim to the dogwood tree in the back yard.  This is "his" tree, and the rest know it.  However, his claim is disputed by a catbird which, while it doesn't spend any particular amount of time in the dogwood, definitely doesn't want the chipmunk there.  As I was taking a photo of the chipmunk the other day, the catbird dived into the tree screeching and chasing the chipmunk, which fled from branch to limb and down the trunk with the bird flying perpendicular and nipping at its tail!  Mr. Chips hasn't been venturing up so high, since.  --  Griff

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