Bulbs

Saturday afternoon, I made my first venture into the world of bulbs. I always love seeing the early signs of spring making their way out of the cold ground in April. Last fall, I was way too busy to plant. And, we didn't know what might have already been in the ground. We had to watch for a year to see what came up. I really have no idea what I am doing, but I decided to give it a go. (I called my mom several times.)

I kept it fairly simple, and decide just to plant in the two areas next to the front steps I that I planted in the spring. I got daffodils, hyacinth, crocus and anemones. For full disclosure, I only managed to plant the daffodils so far. After digging 40 6" deep holes, my hand was killing me. I'll get the rest planted, in shallower holes, next weekend.

Next year, maybe we will manage to expand into a sidewalk border. I also got a few mums, and an aster which is supposed to be a perennial. We'll see how it does. I'm a little bit afraid it won't be sunny enough. I love the colors of the asters so much though, that next year, I think I might plant some on the front corner with the hostas and the sedum (see the picture below with the red fence in the background.)

I'm also taking some chances on the bulbs. Some of them want full sun, some want full sun/partial shade. Once the leaves are on the maple trees, our front yard is pretty shady. But, since the bulbs should be blooming before the leaves are on the trees, hopefully it will work out. 

The last thing I planted was a hydrangea that has been sitting on the front steps all summer. If it has a prayer of coming back, I needed to get it in the ground. I decided to use it to fill in this little gab between two of the bushes in the front. Maybe it will help disguise the hose and the gutter someday!

Ultimately, I plan to get rid of most, if not all, of the forsythias along the red fence, and replace them with hydrangeas. There is an offshoot of the lilac bush trying to get started here too. Greg recently trimmed the forsythias, and did remove one of the far right to free up the lilac a little bit. It looks so much less cluttered already.

Watching Things Grow

Rainy, windy days stuck inside do prove useful for getting caught up on life. One thing we've done a lot of around here this spring and summer is just watch things grow. It's hard to imagine what to do with your yard before you've spent a year watching what's in it. As the summer gets ready to come to a close, this seems like a good time for a photo dump of the wide variety of plant like we have in this yard. Hopefully next spring and summer, we will manage to get a better handle on it!

The biggest landscaping story has to be the abundance of forsythia. It seems to go on forever, and grows about a foot a month. I'm not sure we'll ever be able to tame it!

April: In full bloom, along the red fence Badly in need of a prune!

April: The yellow wall along the side fence in the back yard. 

April: But wait, there's even more around the north side of the house.
We may soon do away with these shrubs in favor of a driveway expansion. We certainly have plenty elsewhere. 

May: trying to tame the yellow beast and give the little lilac a place to grow. 

May: I believe we filled up close to 40 yard waste bags this spring.
This does not include the piles of branches we have been burning in our fire pit all summer!

May: It seems we could have created another whole hedge from what we got rid of. 

May: We could actually see the ground underneath for about a month.
It's since grown back with a vengeance. 

April: Mystery plant sprouting up along the north fence in the back yard.

May: It's filling in quite nicely, and helping to disguise the less than
attractive cinder blocks on our neighbor's side. 

May/June: I'm pretty sure the stuff on the right is some kind of weed.
Goldenrod maybe? I will be hacking that down next year for sure. 

July: Just in time for the 4th, the day lilies reveal themselves. 

July: This mystery plant has cool purple bell shaped flowers,
right next to the day lilies. 

 May: This large lilac was in full bloom, just behind the red fence in the corner.
We can see it from our bedroom window. 

May: Azalea in full bloom. 

May: Another Azalea on the patio.  

May: I planted the new bleeding heart from my friend Leah. It got a little dried out looking recently.
I hope it comes back ok next year. 

June: These shrubs are giving the forsythia at the garage side of the house a run for their money. 

June: A giant hosta emerged in front of the red metal fence.
Above, is our second large lilac bush. 

June: 10 days later, the rose bush that is squashed in the
corner of the fence by the lilac was in full bloom.

June: There are offshoots of the bush in the corner,
but they got pretty overtaken by the day lilies a few weeks later. 

July: Hostas and Sedum on the front corner.
Next year, hopefully we will add some evergreen ground cover to this area. 

July: Hosta just starting to bloom.

June: Shriveled poison ivy along the sidewalk outside our fence, after two applications of poison. 

June: Sidewalk after Greg finished clearing away all the dead stuff.
He managed to do it all without getting a rash, and he is allergic! 

Weeds

Back in the middle of June, we decided it was time to tackle the weeds that were taking over the hostas, roses, and the pavers in our patio at the side of the house. We decided it made sense to get rid of even a little more grass, and use up the rest mulch still taking up the bed of Greg's truck.

Greg tackled the strip along the house, and I tried to dig up the weeds between the patio pavers. 

We decided to rearrange some of the stones while we were at it, to clean up the edges a little bit. Someday, we'd like to redo the patio completely with concrete pavers that are regular, without all the gaps for weeds to grow. But, there are a long list of other items that will come before that. So for now, we'll just keep digging and whacking at the weeds, and watching our step on the not so level surface.

We used some of the extra stones to create a path around the fence from the front yard. 

Even though the weeds have grown back since this shot, the whole patio still looks a lot neater and better organized.

And that night, after we were finished, we enjoyed a nice fire in our new fire pit with our friends Michael and Kat.