In the dirt

We couldn't stand it anymore. We've had Brett's associate from the firm mowing the grass (he likes yard work, and he's cheap!), meanwhile the yews and bushes of uncertain lineage that ring the house have grown to epic proportions. They started out old and huge anyway, now its starting to look like the Munster's house, so we've had him begin pulling them out.

I felt like some shrubs beat no shrubs, but I was wrong. Even the dirt and stumps look neater than the six foot high yews out front and the big hairy whatevers blocking the dining room windows.

Brett went to El Dorado for his reunion over the weekend, and left to my own devices I stopped by the nursery and picked up a few ornamental grasses. I did wait until he got home Sunday to make sure he agreed with their placement, and they're now softening the the corners by the garage door and the side porch.

Between the side porch and the garage door is a little 3X5 bed wedged between the house and the sidewalk. On a whim tonight I ran to Lowe's, thinking I'd get some landscape fabric and weed the empty bed and put down some cloth and think about planting. Then I walked out among the plants in the garden center.

It took me a few hours, but the bed has been weeded, tilled, covered with cloth, and now contains an azelea, a coreopsis, a pencil holly, two artemesia and a curly reed grass. It's all looking a bit small now but I planted planning for everything to fill out. The one thing I completely forgot to buy was mulch. I'll get a bag of that tomorrow and post a photo when it's down.