What now?

There are some nice surprises when you buy a neglected house and start to dig out the overgrowth. Peony shoots pushing up under piles of dead leaves and pine needles. Looking deep underneath the backyard trees, and seeing the buds of giant purple Star of Persia alliums.

On the other hand, there is the "hellstrip." The impossible to landscape strip between the street and the sidewalk that bakes and scorches all summer. Neighbors told us that one owner had hand-picked river rocks and placed them between ornamental ground cover along the whole strip, and carefully maintained it.

That was a long time ago. Now there is close to 80 feet of this.

"Roundup, Roundup, Roundup and repeat," one neighbor suggested. I think that purposely using Roundup is one of the things we will have to answer for in the afterlife. But after seeing the alternative, I will never judge another person for using it.

I got down on my hands and knees, and dug up every one of these rocks by hand.

In between, I looked on the computer and found great ideas for xeriscaping the hellstrip. I got inspired to divide and transplant some of the xeric plantings in the backyard, and create the first beautiful waterwise hellstrip in the neighborhood.

Then I thought about how quickly well-intentioned xeriscaping becomes scraggly late-August-highway-median in the hands of someone like me with no knowledge or money. And I balked. D. pointed out that there is probably a reason that even neighbors with nice yards have hellstrips with patches of browning grass, or boring stretches of tidy rocks.

So I think we are going to take out the weeds, level the dirt, lay down a weed barrier, and put rocks on top. Smaller rocks, with fewer gaps for weeds. We will still have to pull the occasional weed, but there will be no Roundup. And the beautiful river rocks can be saved for another day and another part of the yard.