Finished for Now

The front berm soil enrichment and planting is complete for now. I have a day lily that is ready to bloom and is currently too close to the weeping Japanese maple. When it finishes blooming, I will divide it up and plant it about a foot from where it is now. But that will be the last planting. So this is what it looks like from the corner of my driveway and the street, looking East.
I will add some more small rocks on the East end to create a little walkway to a stepping stone that is next to the top blueberry bush so I can pick it - in a year when it will be old enough to produce berries. But other than adding a few little ground covers and sedums when the temperature gets out of the high 90's in a few days, I AM DONE. I'm pleased with how it looks right now.

Scrap Your Day - JUNE

It's almost the 25th of the month and time to take photos to place in your year long album. If you don't know what I'm talking about check out this. My album is partially assembled, my photos from the past two months are taken and downloaded into my PSE5, but that's as far as I've gotten. Guess maybe tomorrow I need to spend some time and get something done besides take photos.

Progress Report

I haven't been around lately because I've been busy in the front yard almost every day, and planting a bit in my shade garden, and working at my part-time job, and volunteering my time for the Master Gardeners', and sleeping. That's it for the past week or more. So here's a progress report:

Remeber this from May 3rd? Bare ground view from my front steps.

By May 15th it looked like this:

Note the large shrubs out by the public sidewalk - they will be gone in the next photo. And now this is what it looks like as of noon today.

It's been a huge amount of digging, amending, planting and mulching. I should have the last little patch done in just a couple more days. I'm really happy with how it looks. By next year it should be filled in quite a bit. Here's another view that shows most of the planting.

so that's it, for now. The next post should show the finished front yard. And then I can get back to work on the back yard.......

Planting the Front Yard

After a marathon plant shopping spree with a friend on Saturday, I finally started putting some of my front yard plants in the ground. But first I planted up two containers for the front. The first one is for the porch where there is no direct sun. The cement urn is from a neighbor who no longer wanted it. The pinkish leaves are a fushia calico, sport of Gartenmeister; with a fern pellaea rotundifolia otherwise know as a button fern, and there are several pink impatiens that are too small to see yet.
The second pot is for a spot in full sun. The main plant is Heuchera Dolce Creme de Menthe, with some Perilla Magilla purple, and Dicondra Silver Falls, and my favorite, Millions of Bells. I've usually not put so much in my containers, but have learned from my Fine Gardening magazine that they look much better when planted really full. So I guess I'll see.

For about four hours on Sunday and another two today I double dug the first section of the front new garden space. It's located at the corner of the driveway and the sidewalk, and is the point of the berm. The soil in my yard is awful - sand and black mud which are totally lacking in all important nutrients and have a 5.4 pH according to the soil sample I had tested a couple months ago. So as I dug the trenches, I amended with lime, biofish fertilizer and an organic compost. What a pleasure it is to now dig in that area to plant.

My plan is to have this garden be as drought tolerant in the summer and moisture tolerant in the winter as possible. So plants were selected with that in mind. In the photo you will see a small, reddish Japanese maple tree that will get about 5 - 6 feet tall and will be primarily upright with a bit of a drape, 3 carex that will have lovely brown tipped seed stalks, coreopsis - tickseed, a Phormium 'Maori Sunrise' that will get about 3 feet tall, and a day lily 'Stella d'Ora'. There are also a red creeping thyme and a draping ice plant by the wall. The mass of bright green to the bottom right is my purple scented violet that spreads all over my yard. It's easy to pull after it's bloomed so I just love it and encourage it to naturalize freely. In the right rear you can also see an established bed that has a red barberry, iris, calla lilies, pulmonaria, Asiatic lillies, a huge daphne, yarrow, and penstemon in it. I've been adding to that one for many years and it's really well filled in now.

Hope you enjoyed this garden tour as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Friday Favs and Another Card

This week I've been spending a bit of time on inspireMe which is the new official website for websterspages. It's a cool site - check it out.

Also always love Ali's blog and like the weekend creative idea she has this week.

I'm a great fan of Cocoa Daisy and love her kits. Ali has designed the kit for July and I'm sure it will be excellent.

Gardening: this week has been rainy until today so hope to get out in the yard and do some weeding.

I've made another card - this time for Dena's challenge at inspireMe.

Sorry for the white background, but with the flower going off the side, that's how it needs to be scanned. For this I used some older Daisy D's paper and Bazzill cardstock. Cards are so quick and easy to make - satifies my instant gratification.

Have a good weekend.

A Card for Amanda

My step-granddaughter graduates from high school next week. When I first met her grandpa, she was a long-legged seven year old; now she's a six foot tall young lady who's headed to culinary school in the fall. Where does the time go?

So, it was time to make a card for Amanda. I can't remember the last time I bought a card....I'd much rather take the time to make one so it's special for the recepient. So, here's Amanda's card.

(cardstock: Bazzill, PP and rubon: Basic Grey)

The inside reads, "Congratulations" "Spread your wings and fly." Hope she likes it.

Finally Scrapping Again

It's been over a week since I got in my scrap room and did anything. I feel like it's been ages.

I have a kit from PersonalScrapper that came the first of the month, filled with Chatterbox papers. I looked at it and thought, "what I am going to do with this?" as it was filled with pp that would be good for doing kid photos. Since my youngest kid is in her early 30's, I was stumped. So today I took it all out again along with the idea sheet that came with the kit. One of the ideas struck a chord with me and I remembered that I had several goofy photos of my wonderful son-in-law Greg. It didn't take long to put a page together after that.

Greg is/can be a very serious person when it comes to his job with The Energy Trust, but he has a wonderful sense of humor and is often seen being ridiculously funny. These photos capture his child's heart perfectly. Don't ever lose that childlike quality, Greg. Be yourself - you are an original.