Mulch

Today I opened two big bags of spruce mulch and spread them around the garden. These were really heavy bags of mulch, so I was dismayed to find they hardly covered a smidge of my little yard. Sigh. I expect to cover what I'd like, it'll take three times what I've already got on the ground.

The seeds I planted about ten days ago are starting to pop up in a feeble sort of way, and I wonder if they'll survive the weeds' bullying. I planted sunflower seeds, and none of them seem to be making a showing. Maybe it was just too cold for them. It was only 45 this morning, and it's May 17, for heaven's sake. So the above painting is not from my garden. It's of the big house at 17 Shore Road in North Truro where I used to rent a tiny cottage. Bruce de Ste. Croix and Robin Mason used to do the gardening there, and one year they literally dumped a load of sunflower seed, the kind usually used to feed birds onto a patch of ground in front of my cottage. The result was a whole lot of happy birds and a riot of beautiful flowers. Maybe that tiny envelope of seed I bought at the grocery store was the wrong approach.