Another unnamed Iris poking her head out of the overgrown foundation bed.
The overgrown foundation bed brings me to a completely different topic. Wow, is it overgrown. At one point in time, I imagine, the azaleas planted there were petite little things, with a nice selection of perennial bulbs in front. Every once in a while, a stalwart bulb makes an appearance through what has become a monster azalea. Well, really four different varieties that have now intertwined so much it is hard to tell where one begins and the other ends. There is also a nice tall river rock edging hiding somewhere under all the azaleas.
I briefly toyed with the idea of pulling everything out and starting anew. Yet, cost and time aside, I feel an odd connection with the past gardener of this home. I find myself wondering how she would react to find all her azaleas gone. And so, I will try to tame these out of control azaleas by cutting them back. Not just a little, allot. Perhaps this is a mistake. I am trying to find courage by telling myself nothing could possibly make that front bed look worse than it does now!
I can hear azaleas lovers out in the world wide web groaning...no, don't cut back the azaleas, they are meant to wander, to bush, to grow. And I agree, to some extent. We have several other azaleas wildly growing to point of swallowing up the children if they venture into back tree line. I am okay with those. Just not in the front. Trust me, if you saw this in person, you would agree!
Well, wish me luck and courage. Rainstorms are headed our way this weekend, and if I have any hope of cutting these guys back before new growth starts, I need to do this today. I am repeating my mantra "nothing could look worse than it does now, nothing could look worse than it does now".
Azaleas look *horrible* when trimmed into geometric shapes. They refuse to flower under those circumstances. Be warned. This will look *way* worse than a rambling azalea. Way, way worse.
ReplyDeleteLisa & Robb...I gave brief thought to trimming the Azaleas into animal shapes, a la Disney land...okay, for real, I am just kidding. I totally agree that Azaleas look horrible trimmed into geometric shapes. I was lucky that the ones I was referring to had very dense middle growth. I was able to just take the "tops" off to bring them without really making them look any different in shape. When I began, they were a good five feet or higher in many places and eating the house up. Now, they are only at about three feet.
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