What Now???

The Hesitant Gardener had to go out of town for work leaving the brown bullet to supervise. Well the workers put in much of the patio pavers and there is a definite slope that isn't working for me. Soooooo...had to call the landscaper and tell her that they are going to have to redo the pavers. So sad because it will throw us back a few days and we were hoping to have the patio finished by Derby Day (tomorrow). The rain that poured the first three days of this week set us back a few days and now having to redo the pavers isn't great but I know Andrea (our landscape architect) won't be happy with this - hope she isn't happy with it because I'm not! Lesson learned: Never leave a dog to do a person's job - I think the Brown Bullet was sleeping on the job!

The Brown Bullet

Did I mention the 83 pound chocolate labrador retriever who roams our yard, hiking his leg on anything in sight and who is affectionately known as “The Brown Bullet” due to his propensity to run wildly through the yard at high speed after birds and squirrels? He knows no boundaries and hasn’t met a bush he couldn’t kill in short manner due to his turbo peeing ability. His real name is Charlie Guinness (Charlie his given name by the lab rescue and Guinness well I am sure you can figure that out). Charlie G. loves nothing more than to bask in the sun while lying in the yard with a nice soft hosta for a pillow. We’ll see how he likes the garden/courtyard transformation. He doesn't seem too thrilled about losing the nice green ground cover he loved to lie in and his favorite bushes. I am sure 3dogGardener can relate to the challenges of gardening "Where the Wild Things Are".

The lonely hydrangea from the previous pictures has been hilled in and the ivy is almost all gone. I kind of think green (ivy) is better than brown dirt but I guess it is now the Hesitant Gardener's task to turn the brown into more green without spending too much green.

Blank Slate

Fresh Slate

A lot has been happening at the Hesitant Gardener's house. In a desire to start with a fresh slate in the back yard which was overgrown with honeysuckle and ivy we hired someone to come in and clean out the entire space. They took down an old flowering crab apple tree which had been badly damaged in a previous ice storm. The tree gave a good last effort as it was blooming madly the day they came to take it down--sort of like your hair looking the best it ever did the day you are scheduled for a haircut. Now that the backyard is bare dirt I am having second thoughts about taking out all of the ground cover but Dwight says it is too invasive. He has been waging a personal battle against the ivy for years and the ivy has been winning. I guess he figured having hired guns on his side would finally do the job. Pictures of the bare dirt ready for landscaping and hardscaping will be posted. We had them "hill in" (a technical gardening term that the Hesitant Gardener just picked up) a beautiful hydrangea and all my hostas. Pray for my lovely hydrangea to make it through this!

Economy of Scale

I have a lot to learn about the need for the correct scale in order to make the right impact. Cherry G posted a comment that the tulips in the picture are at least three reasons to be proud. The funny thing is that I see now that although beautiful individually, tulips are most effective in a large mass. The tulips going up our front sidewalk are too few and too few apart for the size of our house. Next year I think I need to double the number of tulips and also perhaps weed and mulch the border of the side walk?? Or maybe add some hyacinth with the tulips??? Any ideas? Yes I know, I need to weed and mulch.