Big weeding in Little Portugal

Lamb's Quarters and Labour Day

No rest for this weary and (semi) wicked gardener over the last long weekend of the summer. Designing and putting in new gardens back in May and June seem like distant memories as most of my work now involves weeding, weeding and more weeding. The major fall cleanups will occur in October and November but until then, the weeds in Toronto are still growing lustily.

This post covers a front and backyard cleanup for a client I've seen in the past and profiled in a previous post titled "Front and back garden cleanup in Little Portugal". He (the client) contacts me every late August to schedule a visit and since the gardens are only tidied up once a year, I'm always curious (i.e., filled with dread) to see how weedy things are. And, as usual, I wasn't disappointed!

The client lives in a funky west-end Toronto neighbourhood known as "Little Portugal" or "Brockton Village". The lots are quite small and the front gardens are usually postage-sized lawns or simply covered with concrete pavers for that "no maintenance" horticultural look. 

His front yard  is a hybrid of sorts with some plant beds filled with tawny daylily and ribbon grass with some concrete pavers. Here are some before and after pictures of the weeding, which wasn't too onerous:

Brockton Village summer garden clean up before 

Brockton Village summer garden clean up after

Brockton Village summer garden cleanup before

Brockton Village summer garden cleanup after 

Little Portugal summer garden cleanup before 

Little Portugal summer garden cleanup after 

Little Portugal summer garden cleanup

Little Portugal summer garden cleanup 

The backyard, however...

I was familiar with the size and shape of the backyard so knew that regardless of how bad/tall/deep the weeds were, pulling and digging them out would be possible for me to do by myself. But I didn't expect to see this:

Little Portugal summer backyard garden cleanup before 

The taller weeds are, ahem, very mature Lamb's Quarters (Chenopodium album) which, lucky for me, are relatively easy to pull or dig out due to their small and shallow roots. Did you know that Lamb's Quarters are very edible vegetables? Still, I placed them in the compost bags along with the few Tree of H*ll Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) saplings and Goldenrod clumps mixed among the Lamb's Quarters "crop."

Here are some more before and after pictures of the backyard weeding:

Little Portugal summer backyard garden cleanup after 

Little Portugal summer backyard garden cleanup 

Little Portugal summer backyard garden cleanup 

Looking around the corner afterwards....

Brockton Village summer backyard garden cleanup after 

I had completely forgot that there were hostas back here!  Even when they were shaded out by the taller weeds, they still seemed to thrive.