Productive Day.

i've just spent the last five hours with the rake and vac, cleaning up the backyard and driveway area. lots and lots and lots of leaves and pine needles. most went onto the compost piles (with an ample dose of coffee grounds), but some of the chopped leaves went to mulch the rose, liriope, salvia and lantana along the driveway.

three observations for the day:

• the rake and vac picks up leaves much better than it does pine needles, but once it picks up the pine needles it chops them reasonably well.
  
• coffee grounds help pine needles compost much, much faster than they do otherwise.
  
• the red salvia looks really good while the blue salvia looks so ragged that i cut it down to about 3 inches tall. hopefully it will return from the roots.