Hidden Treasure!

The garage bed is one we have not yet cleared in its entirety.  This is partly due to the copious amounts of tiny thorned berry creepers as well as the fact that some time in the past someone put landscape cloth over the entire thing which of course is now broken down into plastic fiber-y bits and a pain to get out given all the plants that have pushed through over time.

Today I finally remembered to cut back the old growth on the red raspberries on the southern end, and while doing that I started clearing around the nearby daylily as well…and then I found a hidden treasure.

As I was clearing, my gloved fingers hit something hard but thin.  Clearing back the brush, I saw a curve and was rather curious.  I tried to pull it up, thinking it was yet another random piece of metal previous occupants had left in the yard, but it wouldn’t budge.  So I kept clearing, and clearing, and then I realized I might have found an old trellis.  Only as I cleared, I realized it actually didn’t seem very old.

After I had cleared a bit more, I again tried to pull it up now that I had found another curved end.  Still nothing, which I think was partially due to the daylily growing smack in the middle of a section of it, so the leaves were either filling that spot just too much, or possibly the spread of the rhizomes under the ground had made it grow around more than one section and the wider spread was complicating things.  At this point I was fairly certain it was a coated round metal framed trellis.  “Treasure!” I exclaimed before I even realized the thought came into my head–but who doesn’t like finding a free trellis, right?

So I kept clearing down the bed towards the house.  Turns out it was a rather long trellis and not the shorter one I assumed when I first was clearing it off.  If it is old, it’s in fantastic shape, so I have a feeling it was a later addition that somehow was forgotten by one of the renters when they left.  (I’ve mentioned before, but our home was owned by the same family since 1935.  When one of the granddaughters inherited it, she rented it out as an absentee landlady before that didn’t work out so well for her and she decided to sell the house.)

I’ve already made up my mind that I’m going to put it in the driveway strip where it can be seen out the east kitchen window.  I still have some Grandpa Ott seeds, so I’ll plant those tomorrow and see how it goes.  Depending on if a car is parked in the driveway or not, the view out that window is pretty much just the neighbor’s falling down wood fence.  So if the morning glory does well there that will be a really nice change of view. It should get enough sun near to noon and beyond, given the orientation of our property.

For the picture above, I stuck it in the ground near to the lily the top had been nearest, but if you look below that you can see where I cleared to unearth it.