Gardening

I've learned that as an adult, having little to nothing "going on" on a day-to-day basis is actually quite nice. We've taken advantage of this down-time to get some things done around the house. Last week was the pavers, this week was a garden. Rick wanted to put in flower beds last year, but we had so many other things to do in our new house that it fell to the wayside. Yesterday we started by ripping out all of the grass between the sidewalk and garage and in front of the front porch.
Here's the before picture. Note the new house that they're putting up next door--it's really close! Ripping out the grass wasn't too hard, maybe because we're such pros from last year.

We pulled it up in strips and used the healthy grass we pulled up here to fill in dead spots in the backyard. Between the dog and what might best be described as a glacier that was resident just inside our gate this winter, we had some spots that needed repairing. Hopefully a sod transplant will do the trick!

I purchased the plants for this space yesterday as well, but put the planting off until today. Yesterday afternoon my mom, dad, and sister were in town and Rick smoked a brisket and some ribs and had a nice meal before we went to the PBR--it was a great show as always.

This morning after breakfast we got back to work, running to the store to get some topsoil to add to the clay soil we have and some mulch. After we put in the trim, Rick dug holes and I put in the plants. Topped it all off with some wonderful-smelling cedar mulch. Once again I neglected to take some action shots, but here's the finished product.

I'm so happy with how it looks and so excited to see the flowers bloom! I bought "easy" to care for perennials which will hopefully come back year after year and be hardy. Although I work with plants as a career, I'm not the best gardener. Might sound surprising since my corn grows just fine, but we have a wonderful farm manager who makes sure the corn grows right. I just take notes on it and if it looks sad I tell Kurt and he fixes it. Requires very little agricultural skills on my apart. I'm just not good with plants. I usually get bored with indoor plants and eventually stop taking care of them, so I'm hoping these will be fairly low maintenance but also that I can find my inner green thumb.

I think it's a good start. The azaleas are already blooming and the hydrangea set out its first flowers today. The lilies are about to bloom, and the columbines are starting today as well. I'm so excited for our little garden! The weather looks good for the foreseeable future, so sun, water and a watchful eye will hopefully get these little guys through the transplant blues!