Out in the Yard

It started in late winter. We finished the last bit of stockade fencing around the back yard. And suddenly, the rotted timbers for the raised garden looked even more rotten. I’d been bugging Charlie forever to get rid of them and we finally came up with a plan to eliminate most of the timbers without all of the soil eroding away.

We raked and sloped and grass-seeded more than half of that area. The rest had some trees and shrubs we wanted to keep and not have to mow around so we built up two-high timbers for that part (as opposed to the original rotted six-high). When that was finished I planted two rose-of-sharon bushes and some black-eyed susans.

We also had a profusion of orange tiger lilies that had overtaken several spaces around the yard. We dug up all of them, gave away as many as we could, and replanted the rest in the new and improved garden. I’ll plant some spring bulbs there in a couple of weeks and we should have something blooming there nearly year-round.

Across the yard is another long, narrow garden with a few rose bushes, a lilac, a forsythia. and tons of tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and narcissus. After the spring bulbs died back, I’ve always put in annuals. This year it was petunias–you can see how well that turned out 😦

So I decided to try perennials. You can see half of that venture in the picture below: mums, asters, balloon flower, and coreopsis. All require full sun, so they’re all planted on the sunny half. Next week I’m off to buy two or three more perennials that are shade tolerant and–voila!–our yard project will be complete!

Now all we have to figure out is how to keep the dog from digging holes everywhere.

^{*featured image credit}