Friday we had a department offsite, so I was already a little bit tired from playing laser tag and bowling out of my mind. I bowled three sets and averaged 150 points in each game (high of 154), a remarkably high and consistent performance considering my past performances. Although I was active during the day, I picked up some soil and a Red Bull and had the old bushes pulled and wood chips completely removed from all areas by Friday night. I'm officially wood chip free, which is a good thing since they blow away and create a mess.
Leading up to this project I just assumed that the bushes died because they weren't the best of the lot (we put the nicest looking in the front), they didn't get enough water, and possibly had a bad winter. After I pulled them up I noticed that they were sitting in a lot of heavy clay. I had amended the soil, but these guys don't like to get their feet wet, so the soil had probably contributed to their decline.
I removed a ton of clay soil and used a soil amendment for clay, in addition to planting them a little higher then soil level and digging a channel and filling it with gravel for the water to run off. We'll see if it works. We bought the replacement bushes from a nursery this time, instead of where we got them all last time (Home Depot). All these positives give me hope that they will last longer then three years.
Jonathan and I took my truck to Pioneer Sand and picked up some gorilla hair mulch. He loves going because he gets to see the big trucks in action. It was probably the highlight of his day to watch the loader dump mulch into the bed of my truck. As it stands right now, I'm done with the major outdoor projects that I wanted to accomplish this summer. Time to have some fun!
