The legend
You know the story where Sisyphus is made to push a large rock up a mountain. When he gets to the top, the rock slides back down. So Sisyphus has to push the rock back up, over and over again. He has to expend a lot of energy for nothing; we know the rock will slide back down. It’s a nightmare with a lot of wasted energy.
Bare beds
Now, what if Sisyphus was a landscape professional and the gods had to punish him? What would he do, over and over again? This thought popped into my head last week. I came to help out on a site full of bare beds.
Bare bed means it’s devoid of plant life and what happens to bare beds? Weeds move in. And those weeds produce thousands of seeds, if you let them. And on this site, weeds are allowed to reproduce liberally.
So there was my answer: Sisyphus would weed out bare beds only to do it again when the weeds came back. Pushing a rock up a mountain is starting to look appealing.
Why bare beds?
Some multi-family sites don’t have the budget for new plants. Whatever plants the developer installed died without proper irrigation. Yes, plants need good soil and water, especially in summer. So here we are, one site full of empty raised beds but they don’t stay bare for long. Weeds move in.
Now, if you didn’t let the weeds produce flowers and seeds, you would be ok. But even the landscapers you hire are busy with other tasks. That’s where I come in.
Weeding
I don’t mind weeding regular gardens where plants shade out and outcompete many weeds. Anything that happens to get established is weeded out with hand tools and buckets. And it’s not a bad task when you have nice plants all around you.
Bare raised beds are awful. There is nothing to look at and I know that there are thousands of seeds in the soil waiting to sprout after I leave. Whatever I do, the weeds will come back. So, just give me a rock and show me where you want it.
