Happy Spring!

Today is the official first day of Spring and mother nature did not disappoint. It was a perfectly sunny day. We worked outside for a good chunk of the day. We even saw a Bald Eagle soaring overhead. Bill mowed the lawn. I planted 3 begonia bulbs and 9 dahlia bulbs. Last summer I put in 4 or 5 dahlias, but I’m not sure if they are going to come back. Our winter was pretty mild, so I am really hoping they were hardy enough to make it. Check out our cute new bird bath dog water dish. We bought it with the best of intentions for our backyard birds, alas, it happens to be at the perfect height for Ralph to lap up all the water. Oh well, it is still really cute and cheery. This the ranunculus I planted last week. It is doing well, with a bunch of buds in the works. Success. Here is the azalea I planted. All the beautiful blooms that were on it when I bought it are dead and there are no new buds looking to take their place. Fail. Hopefully it will be healthy enough and bloom next year. And here is one of the aforementioned anemones. There are a bunch more coming up. Success.

Together we worked on digging up the gravel strip that lined our front yard. Seriously, why the hell would you put gravel there? Why?!? Isn’t it lovely? Why put in a garden or even shrubbery when you can have gravel? Ugh. So it turned out that underneath the gravel was a layer of plastic. There were two types of plastic: brown and black. The brown plastic was thicker and much easier to pull up. The black plastic was pretty flimsy and a lot of weeds had broken through (as evidenced in the photo).Ah, brown plastic. You made my job that much easier.   Black plastic, you suck.

We ended up digging up about 2/3 of the strip. We didn’t finish because we went to help plant the last 3 trees from the city: 2 Jacquemont Birches and one Red Maple. If you are thinking about planting trees yourself, let me make a recommendation. Do NOT get a Red Maple. Their root balls come straight from the devil. They have been far and away the worst to plant. We were able to plant both of the birches from start to finish, meanwhile we were barely half way into picking apart the maple’s root ball. Blurg.

Maybe we will finish digging up the gravel tomorrow, well, at least the digging up the bulk of it. We need to go buy some rakes to get the last loose pieces. We will also need the mini white picket fencing we want to put in. Of course, we also need to get some soil and mulch to fill in the now gravel-less pit. Once that is done I can really start going wild with planting seeds. Wah-hoo!