Charmion landed a perfect 10 with that brand name. :)

Next door neighbor called to tell me they piled some of their branches on the pile of branches I have assembled at the curb, since the branches they put out at the bottom of their driveway already were picked up with the regular trash. They wanted to be sure the rest went so they added them to my stack. The way we do this is probably repeated through the neighborhood - you establish a pile of trash at the curb as a marker for the city to note, that you intend to have material picked up as part of bulky waste. And until they actually do pick it up, you keep adding to the pile. Mine has about doubled since Monday because yesterday I took more dead limbs out of the vitex in the front.

I started pulling the dirt off of the roots of a juniper that has been ailing for a while - when I planted it 20 years ago I dug a hole and plopped in the shrub - turns out most of them come from the nursery with extra dirt added to the pots and the root flare of the tree or shrub is buried in there somewhere. This line of demarcation - the flare - should actually be at ground level and show at the base of the tree. This talks about it. I think this one is a few inches too deep so I'm pulling dirt off (I'll post before and after photos later). The soil coming off of it has been accumulating nutrients and is in very nice shape, so I'm filling a few of my pots right now. When I get ready to plant something in them I'll dump the contents into the wheelbarrow, add some compost and soil amendments (various organic products like lava sand and greensand that provide nutrients and keep the soil friable instead of hard-packed. This is a long-lived plant so the fact that I'm doing this now will just keep it alive and healthier longer. And this is perfect soil for the repotting I was wanting to do (keeping in mind it is pretty acid from being under this shrub - I could plant blueberries or azaleas in it without any changes). I will probably also mix in some of the old soil from pots to lower the pH. You never need to discard the used soil, just add more amendments, etc. I also need to expose the flare on the vitex, come to think of it.

I've decided to start on the driveway side of the front yard and work my way toward the yard's front path (the half-way line in front). So this shrub needs work, then weeding a bed near it, trimming a couple of other shrubs, then addressing the larger tree I've been trimming all week - I've just laid out several weeks' worth of work for myself.

And on a topic unrelated - I'm hearing happy reports back from an old friend who finally decided to get cataract surgery after bemoaning the state of his glasses prescription. The first eye is so clear and the colors are wonderful! Decluttering the old cataracts is one of the things that Medicare will pay for (for the standard lens) that improves so many lives.