Around the Yard Lately: Part 1

This is an incredibly busy time of year for most people. Here is no exception. With winter having had a death grip on Mother Nature this particular year till the very end of April, all the yard projects were pushed back a couple weeks. Our honeysuckle is just now blooming, making it a good two weeks behind last year.

Despite the late start, we've been going like gangbusters lately, wasting no time getting things planted, pruned, and fixed up. I'm not complaining: I waited five long months for this! But it is exhausting, and most of the time I can no longer feel my hands due to carpal tunnel and tennis elbow and whatever else may be going wrong with these frustrating appendages of mine.

I end most my days feeling like a coal miner. My feet are in serious need of some TLC, but I'd trade it every time for the good digging in the dirt does my soul.

I hope to write a follow-up to this post (thus the "Part 1") later this summer to compare how things are growing. Right now seedlings are just emerging and there are very few blooms. The lilacs are on their way out, as are the bluebells. We made the best of it while they graced us with their brief presence!

I'm so excited that these irises are about to bloom! My mother-in-law thinned some of her beds and shared the wealth with me. They appear to be a gorgeous dark purple.

The first project I tackled this spring was clearing a stretch of the creek bank so we could start mowing back there, hopefully for easier maintenance. I hauled away multiple wheelbarrows full of saplings, sticks, and weeds. I didn't make it as far down creek I had hoped, but it's so much better than the mess of nettle and horse weed it became last year.

The dreamy, ethereal  look to these photos is thanks to the cracks that run across my wide-angle camera sensor on my phone. 

This corner was the street half of the boys' "secret hideout" until the city came along last fall and hacked it all off. I went back over it and trimmed stumps down so I could get the push mower back there. The slab of concrete is the abandoned sidewalk, now a scenic overlook of sorts. It's marked "1970", and was discontinued by the formation of the creek.

We got the garden in a couple weeks ago, before the rainy stretch set in. We added a bunch of fertilizer to hopefully beef up the soil. But the tall grass I weeded way too late last year had done it's damage and reseeded itself. It will be a constant battle this year against the grass. Isn't it ironic that when you don't want grass that's all that grows...yet there are bare patches of lawn where it refuses to thrive.

I ended up scraping the top 1-2" of soil off half the garden (by hand, with a spade) to remove all the grass. I moved the soil to the area by the garage's back door to level it off. It now awaits patio pavers for a mud-free area to step out on.

In the garden this year we planted radishes (cherry giant, by accident...we'll see how that goes), sweet yellow and red onions, kohlrabi, baby spinach, leaf lettuce, cucumbers, green beans, zucchini, jalapenos, green bell and orange mini bell peppers, four Early Girl tomatoes and one cherry tomato plant.

This happy little geranium adds a bit of cheer to the occasion every time I hang out laundry. The lobelia I paired with it are not so happy...they don't seem to like their pot mate...or pot life in general. In fact, lobelia does not really do super well for me here. I'm not really sure why I keep buying it! It's hard to pass up the cute, dainty blue flowers. Geraniums are more my speed I guess.

Around Aidan's teepee (which he was incredibly excited about) I planted cantaloupe melons and butternut squash. The plan is that they will vine up over the teepee!

The boys and I worked on shoveling rock out of the raised bed flanking the front porch. There was so much rock in this small space that I had to refill it with several loads of topsoil. I'm so excited to report that we finally have a kitchen herb bed planted there! We have dill, cilantro, basil, oregano, peppermint, chives, and a handful of leftover lettuce seeds from the garden.

Around the corner in the mulched area I planted pink phlox (that my own dear mama thinned from one of her beds) and one lone tag-along daffodil that has survived against all odds.

This stretch of bed right in front of the house remains a work in progress. You can't tell, but I've already hauled loads and loads of rocks from here. I moved enough rock to plant pussy willow cuttings flanking the dining room window, and a row of sweet pea hyacinths and scarlet runner beans (also from my mom!) to hopefully climb the iron porch column on the far left. Eventually I want to fill this bed with wildflowers.

The rock on each side of the steps will stay, and we hope to build a small wooden deck and new steps over it soon. The concrete steps are beginning to crumble away under the ugly green outdoor carpet.

                                                        

This mess along the side of the driveway is my next rock and weed removal project:

I was so excited this spring to see the hostas I planted last summer breaking through the earth! (They were from Eli's aunt and uncle!) We had a very hot, dry end to last summer and a bitterly cold winter with no insulating snow for a long time. I decided to mulch around them this year to help hold moisture in and to make it easier to mow around.

We also have our very own pine ent. 

Eli asked me to also mulch around the new baby lilacs we planted right before Addie was born last spring. Hopefully it'll keep people from tromping all over them when they flock across our lawn for parades and such this summer. Have I mentioned that I really really dislike living on the parade route?

As I mentioned in The Day Goliath Fell, I wanted to turn this stump from the old sugar maple into a shrine for Our Lady. Around the front I planted alyssum and lobelia and left the violets already growing there. Around the back half I planted sweet pea hyacinths, which have just begun sprouting! I have willow whips cut to fit into holes we will drill in the stump, which I'll weave into a trellis for the flower vines. Eli let me order this Immaculate Heart of Mother Mary statue for the shrine.

Sweat pea hyacinths that I grew over the porch rail at the little gray house.

This stone planter (in a very awkward place) was falling apart so I'm also in the process of demolishing that.

The oak tree in the back yard also looked lonely, and so I decided to construct a little shrine to the Sacred Heart as well. I wanted Him overlooking the garden and yard. The old stumps with hollow spots have really come in handy this year! Besides the wave petunias, I also planted calla lilies in a horseshoe shapes around the tree and stump. The Sacred Heart of Jesus statue was also from Amazon. Behind is the strip of yard we use for our "morning PT run".

All last summer we tried to dig the rocks out of this space, formerly home to the deer family that now rests behind the old garage. This year I decided to give up the fight and made it a succulent garden. When life gives you rocks, make a garden with rock loving plants! The lovely black rooster was a Mother's Day gift from Eli.

On the other side of the front yard I replanted alyssum in the stump. The hydrangea is slowly but surely returning to life. The forever plant is bushing up, and I framed it again with the crate I found at an estate sale, which is home to a geranium. On the other side of that I planted another pussy willow.

I have a hanging begonia again gracing the front-side porch, and found a used screen door for $10 that we plan to put on the dining room door (which is to the right in the photo).

We added a couple more bird feeders to the west of the house, which has increased the finger and nose prints on the living room window at least by 90%. But still, I'd much rather have the boys staring out a window than at a screen!

In front of the old back garage I assembled a honeysuckle branch and willow whip teepee trellis for more sweet pea hyacinths. It is flanked by irises.

Again, sweet pea hyacinths. Aren't they beautiful?

And to the west of the old garage is the picket fence that I struggled to get flowers to grow by last year. This year mums and daylilies are established. I also planted a mix of wildflowers and bachelor buttons. Behind the fence I planted sunflowers. Scarlet runner beans were planted in front of the little piece of fence against the tree.

And along the west facing garage wall we planted our first bed of aparagus here. I so hope it thrives! So much of what we're doing is trial and error. If it didn't work last year, we're doing it different this year.

On this side of the old garage I'm using the flat stones from the demolished planter to make a flat area under the window. We found another old screen door, this one metal with glass, for $5, and will remove the window and replace it with the screen door. Along the wall to the right of the window I hope to have a potting stand...someday.

We have the tent set up behind the house this weekend to air out and make minor repairs for camping in July. The boys plan to sleep out there tonight!

And lastly...it's baseball season! Major league is on the TV and Gavin and Liam are in Little League. Gavin hit a home run last night! We found out too late this season that Aidan could have signed up for fast pitch, so that's the plan for next year and he'll be taking swimming lessons instead this summer. I love that the baseball park is right behind our house. The boys are over there right now practicing.

Gavin made contact with the ball his first swing, so I only got a blurry picture of him running. Last night he hit a home run!

Liam