Product Review: Timberwolf Composite Edging

Which is the most baldfaced lie?

A) I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky.

B) Iraq is producing weapons of mass destruction

C) Easy to install!

I bought some edging materials today for Teresa's Charleston Garden, and unpacked it with no small amount of trepidation, for emblazoned on the box were those three words: Easy To Install.

The box also said that the edging strips were made in the United States from 100% post-consumer recycled materials, so I patted myself on the back for finding a reasonably green product and one not from China, but still, there was the installation looming at the periphery of my consciousness.

The product itself is a 16-foot strip of composite material that looks more or less like wood, but is flexible. It comes rolled up, so you have to stretch it out and let it "relax," according to the instructions. So I let the strips sun themselves on the deck while I dug a trench along the edge of the flowerbed and pressed the stakes as far down in the dirt as they would go. (Sorry that I don't have photos...it was raining, which is always good if you need to hammer something in red NC clay.)

Once the strips were sufficiently rested, I slid them into the slots at the top of the stakes, attached the little pounding block that came in the package, and drove them into the dirt with my rubber mallet.

I consulted the instructions again for the next step. There was no next step. That was it. No attaching Flange A to Base 49.6 with the Blue 1/2" pin. It took maybe ten minutes. In the rain. And it looks damn good if I do say so myself.

(Editor's Note: LMAID received no compensation from Fibertech Polymers for this glowing, erudite, and witty product review...But if you guys at Fibertech want to send me several hundred more linear feet of edging for the rest of my garden, I'll make sure that box appears in every photo for the next 6 months. )

If It's Still Summer, I'll Keep Rooting Stuff

The weather has turned cooler..."cooler" being a relative term. Temperatures have been in the 80s, which is normal for August but not October, but at least you can go outside and do some work without "the monkey" getting you. (Do people outside the South say that, or is it just one of our colloquialisms?)

A while back, I tried to root some cuttings from my white hydrangea, something I've never been successful with before. Two of them did develop roots, so I transplanted them into some potting soil today.

Since winter shows no signs of arriving anytime soon, I took some cuttings of a Silver King Euonymus, which is easy to root, dusted them with the magic rooting powder, and set them in pots. Just for fun, I also took a piece of my Koreanspice Viburnum, another plant that has survived the drought admirably, to see if I could root it. At least with these, if water restrictions get too severe, I can fill up a coffee cup at the sink and keep them hydrated!

Remember the weigela I rooted over the summer? Check it out!

I also put up Teresa's iron fence for her "Charleston Garden." She named it that because it will be very narrow, like the gardens between the houses along the Battery in Charleston (where, as the natives say, "the Ashley and Cooper Rivers merge to form the Atlantic...")

The fence came from Lowe's, and was relatively easy to put up. The hardest part was pounding the base stakes into the clay. I loosened up the soil with a mattock before I started, but that only took care of the top layer. Yes, it is a little crooked, but you know what? Once we have some clematis growing up it, and flowering perennials stuffed in that 12 inch strip of dirt, you'll never be able to tell. Besides, all those houses in Charleston, their fences are crooked too. I call it "character."