I am declaring victory, at least for now, over the Watsonia. I don't know who planted these plants out behind the garage--they've been there for many years. I don't think Cindy planted them; she wasn't much into bulbs. They bloom in the Spring with tall spikes of bugle shaped, salmon-ish colored flowers. They're pretty for about a week, and then the weight of the flower stalks makes the whole thing tip over and drape itself all over the pathway. https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/watsonia/
Hummingbirds apparently like them, but I've never been fond of them, mainly because of their path-draping habits, and it turns out I've never bothered to take any pictures of them in bloom. The flowers die, the stalks and leaves dry up, and we've usually just left them alone.
The Watsonia climbed to the top of the "Garden-- Deal With It Now" list recently when the ancient garden hose that feeds the faucet on the wash table I gave Cindy several years ago sprung a leak. I don't know if the leak happened because the hose was old and deteriorated through exposure to the sun, or whether some varmint decided to chew on it, but the sad fact is that it does leak and needs to be replaced.
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| Pretty Clear Why It's Leaking |
Replacing it meant that the dried Watsonia leaves and stalks finally had to be dealt with because they were in, around, and over the the irrigation pipes and wires behind the garage, including the hook up for that hose.
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| Project Half Done: Irrigation System Pipes And Remains of the Watsonia |
That meant I had to be careful about digging them out without damaging any of the irrigation pipes, wires, or hoses. So I started digging, carefully but with determination, cringing a bit whenever I hit something solid, which was pretty often. Fortunately, the solid objects I was hitting turned out to be the Watsonia corms, which looked a bit like flying saucers.
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| Watsonia Corms |
And it turned out that, after years of neglect, there were multiple layers of corms; corms on top of other corms and underneath them all usually a huge monster mother corm, all of which had to be pried reluctantly out of the soil.
It was hot, tiring work, largely because I had procrastinated so long that the sun was on that side of the garage by the time I started. I only got about half of it done the first day, so I decided to leave a couple of the corms on the wall to see if any of the local critters would nosh on them overnight. Nope, they were still there with not a toothmark to be seen on them the next morning. Taking a break overnight turned out to be a good thing, because I realized that what I needed was a tool that would give me leverage to pry the corms up, and of course, Cindy had such a tool in the garage.
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| Corm Killer Tool! |
The tool, part chopper and part fangy-toothed rake, worked great and I had much more fun hacking and prying up corms today.
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| All Cleaned Out. Wonder Where All These Pipes Go? |
So I got it cleaned out. Next--fix the hose.
Now I need chocolate.
