Supposed to be sunny today and it started out that way, but by noon it was overcast and cool – however I needed my cardio so I kept up the sweat raking about half the hillside. There was plenty of cutting debris scattered everywhere and I made it past the oleanders to the big shaggy-grassy thing, filling the yard-waste bin with two bags of cuttings.
Phew, that’s going to be heavy to roll-drag up the hill and out to the road. Dug out a number of blackberries in the soft, wet soil – perfect conditions for that, and discovered some issues with the upper drip-line – like many plants over-growing it in places because it’s so old, and a complete absence of connection and termination. One end is not capped – and the whole upper is not connected to the lower water-source/fountain.
All of it was obscured by the heavy overgrowth that is now removed, so I can get that working again which would be nice for the quince.
Also nice the ground is soft enough to dig and plant instead of being concrete-ized by the summer heat.
This fat and happy fellow was out in the rain yesterday pecking away, some kind of woodpecker.
Not Clauswitz 
Northern Flicker, looks like. Should have a red patch on the back of the neck, but some don’t show one.
Still trying to figure out the local bird population, Minnesota being different to California, but having trumpeter swans paddling about in the river below the kitchen window makes it look like it might be interesting out here. Migration is full on now, and we saw the first of the cranes flying over this morning.
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Yep, get that out of there!
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Looks like pampas grass to me, INVASIVE! http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/foliage/pampas-grass/growing-pampas-grass.htm
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Birghid thank you very much! Yeh that’s the stuff. Says I can cut it back to the ground in Spring – so I guess I will. Or burn it to the ground I don’t see much propagation taking place, so the invasion is halted at one…
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Big grassy thing looks like elephant grass. Horrible stuff. Grows like crazy and cuts you when you try to reach into it to trim it back.
If the drip line isn’t connected to the water at one end, who cares if it isn’t capped at the other end? Just saying.
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The big fluffy has sharp blades! My elbow-length, goat-skin, rose-bush gloves protect pretty well – and it appears other iterations of that stuff have died (weird fluffy stumps), so maybe there’s hope this will die too?
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