A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. But you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk.
~ Nicky Santoro, Casino (1995)
As the days start to get warmer, we are remaking most of our beds and creating new ones as well. I absolutely love this part of spring. Seedlings, putting in new plants and visualizing how things are going to look in the coming months and years.
The downside of this anticipation, is the hole-digging. This year, we are going to be putting in several new trees, a laurel hedge spanning 30 – 40 feet and a battery of new shrubs such as viburnum, quince and a new Burkwood Osmanthus.
Even with all the roots I have encountered from older trees and shrubs, I find the soil here easy to dig. Maybe it is partly the time of year, but the clay is not so tough as to slow down the shovel blade much unless it encounters an obstacle.
One such obstacle is the sprinkler system. This house has an extensive network of irrigation lines and sprinklers that have not been used for years. I don’t know whether there is even a control module anywhere. I know I haven’t seen one yet. At any rate, all this plumbing creates a hazard for digging. In the past week, I have driven my shovel into two separate sprinkler lines.
Once I have cracked a sprinkler line, I really need to stop and fix it on the spot and this slows me down. It about an hour and a half or so of extra work for a typical repair. First, I need to widen the hole without doing more damage. Then I need to cut a section around the crack in the pipe and cut another section of PVC to patch the line. Then primer and cement – which takes two hours to dry. Finally, I have to test.
Unless I want to create a lot of extra work for myself, I am going to have to be a little more careful while I put our new additions into the garden.