My Magic Weed Wand and Other Garden Nonsense

Mike, I have seen this tool advertised on tv here in CA. I’m not sure I could use one even if I had one. I know if I used one of those tools to remove the dandelions from some areas of my lawn, I would end up with more holes than grass. lol Living in a predominantly rural area, there is large fields strewn with dandelions. But it certainly does a good job for you!

I really like your neatly edged gardens. Your property looks like a park with the gardens so nicely defined and the shrubs and evergreens. Good job!

-- 'To plant a Garden is to believe in Tomorrow'

The edging does really accent everything around it. Mike your lawn and garden looks so very nice. The fruits of your labor.

-- Donnie in sunny South Carolina

Lookin’ good from here, Mike!! I have been thinking about edging for a few years, maybe this is the year ? :-))

Mike, both of you have done the edging so neat to enhance the beauty of the garden. Perfection and elegance is in your blood. The weeder tool is so handy and useful for removing deep rooted enemies. Your photographs are a feast to the eyes. I felt as if I am in Norway!
I also have a Minolta 303b and have used it quite a bit before the digital cameras arrived. It used to give excellent results.

Sharad

-- Bagwan-- “If someone feels that they had never made a mistake in their life, then it means they have never tried a new thing in their life”.-Albert Einstein

Thanks for the kudos everyone. Funny you should mention our garden looking like a park IRIS, because my DIL’s mom always says the same when she is visiting us. It sound like you will have to resort to chemical warfare with fields of dandelions right next to you.

-- Mike the reluctant gardening assistant of Lillian

Mike unlike you I separate my lawns and gardens with pavers and rocks so edging is out of the question. But you have done such a great job and your gardens are looking fantastic.

-- David, Adelaide South Australia. Every day I wake up breathing is a good day!

thumbs up!!
love that last photo – so inviting.
Definitely worth the hard work. My method is to have Rick run the lawnmower as close to the plants as possible haha :) Nice clean edge.

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

Thanks David and Debbie. And Debbie I sincerely hope you have a lawnmower that you can sit on because that huge lawn of yours could take some of the fun out of mowing.

-- Mike the reluctant gardening assistant of Lillian

Stefang, your gardens look wonderful, so organized and immaculate. The lines look perfectly trimmed and mulched. It does not look like the work of a reluctant gardener to me!

Your weeding tool looks neat, but I don’t weed my grass. In any square meter of the lawn, you would probably easily find over ten different plants in addition to the grasses and a square meter over from that would have different plants growing too. I don’t fret because I call my lawn a pasture so I don’t have to worry about dandelions, red and white clover, chives, mint, vetch, yellow, white and purple flowering weeds – actually just about anything that survives the weekly lawn mowing is permitted to grow.

I do need to work on my edges. I know a very small New England farm that could use the services of your gardening reluctance…. : )

-- "To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves." M. Gandhi

It’s all my wife fault. I was just following orders. Reluctant workers are easy to recruit, just offer them a good meal and a Lazyboy chair and you will get all you need (or want).

Your place has so much to offer that you don’t need an obsessively maintained lawn to make it nice. BTW they say dandelion wine made from the flowers is very good, (though I’ve never had any) and I understand their newly sprouted leaves are delicious in salads, (again never tried it). Maybe knowing these things should keep us looking forward to getting even more dandelions.

-- Mike the reluctant gardening assistant of Lillian

I, too, have an assistant – and he cuts the grass so it never bothers me a bit! haha

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

You wouldn’t be laughing if you were the assistant Debbie! I told my wife I was tired of clipping the grass and I suggested we get and old goat to keep it trimmed. She said “what for? I already have one”

-- Mike the reluctant gardening assistant of Lillian

oh I saw that one coming!! lol
Rick says he enjoys cutting the grass – although I think he gets a little dizzy out there now as he goes around and around all those trees :)
I’m trying to get them connected into “beds” but time and $$$ are limited. We’ll get there.

-- - Debbie, SW Ontario Canada (USDA Hardiness Zone: 5a)

I hear you Debbie, It seems that there are so many things to spend money on that it’s hard to prioritize. It wouldn’t be as much fun or challenging if we had unlimited funds to do whatever we wanted. We also wouldn’t have much to look forward to.

There were two fruit trees in the garden when we bought our current house 10 years ago. I absolutely hated mowing around them. It was a nightmare. 5 years ago we removed the trees and redesigned the whole garden. I dug out all the turf for the beds with my little shovel. Several trailer loads of turf to the recycling center and home with top soil, the a couple thousand dollars worth of plants and lastly bark on top. It was a fantastic transformation and we still love it. Now there are no obstacles for the mower. I get it done in 15-20 min. So then I was broke and no longer had free apples or plums.

-- Mike the reluctant gardening assistant of Lillian

Looks like a great tool Mike.My yard is like Iris’.If I used that to get rid of the dandelions I would have a yard full of holes left.We can’t use weed killer here in Hastings so everyones yards are full of dandelions.I am getting used to thinking of them as little yellow flowers now instead of weeds. (LOL)

-- Bon,Hastings,Ont.....zone 5a....Always room for one more

A timely comment Bon. I just finished getting rid of all the dandelions in our lawn with my little tool. The holes are an asset because they aerate your lawn. I know they look scary, but they close up almost immediately, and they have the effect of loosening up the compacted soil a bit. Your lawn will love you for it. However, everyone likes to do things their own way and I respect that. Being happy is the goal. I’m a little obsessive with the lawn because it’s the only gardening thing I know a little about and it is my job to maintain it. I also fertilized it. Rain is predicted for tomorrow so I sure hope it materializes because with all the fertilizer, water will be needed to dissolve it before it burns up. It’s exciting living on the edge.

-- Mike the reluctant gardening assistant of Lillian

I have a similar weeding tool. I think it’s called a hound dog or something like that. Great little thing. The only real difference between mine and yours is I have a little piece on the bottom to step on to get the prongs deeper into the soil. Works great though. I absolutely love your garden. Very beautiful.

-- Cooking, weeding, and growing what I can in Brampton. -Joe (Superdad)

Thanks for those kind words Joe. I should have known that if we have it in our tiny country then just about everyone else had it before us. I just like it so much I wanted other to know about in case they didn’t. A real back saver. Enjoying you posts. Keep up the good work.

-- Mike the reluctant gardening assistant of Lillian