If April showers bring may flowers, what do may flowers bring?
The backyard and garden beds have suffered from use by two boys and the dog. At some point we should just tear it up and start over, but not until the boys are off to college and the dog slows down a bit.
In the meantime, there is work to be done to bring the gardens back to “not embarrassing”.
First up was the removal of the dead and dying… particularly a mountain laurel and azalea along the back fenceline. The corner where the azalea sat has never been good to us. There were lilacs there when we bought the house, but they were old and died off. (I’m still pulling up stumps.) We tried a dogwood, then the azalea. Now I’m moving Hostas into that corner because (a) I need to move them out of other beds, and (b) Gretchen would actually be happy to see them fall to whatever curse plagues that corner. (The “curse” is more likley to be related to the demolition debris the previous owners had dumped there.)
Next we tore out the day lilies and separated the lilies from the weeds (and the lilies from each other.) The lilies were moved down the fence to a spot previously taken by a couple big variegated Hostas. Some went across the yard to the dust bed to compete with the weeds and ivy.
In place of the lilies, we transplanted a Hydrangea from along the driveway and added some purchased Hydrangeas. We’ll see which ones survive (they may otherwise need thinning.)
In place of the Mountain Laurel, we gathered stray Bleeding Hearts from around the yard and brought them to one bed beside the greyhound statue.
We had a number of stray Columbines growing around the yard, including two in a dark corner behind the shed. These were brought together in bed beside the deck where we can actually see them. Our clumps of poppies were dug up, separated, and spread around that bed as well.
A couple Trumpet Flower vines were planted along the back and side fences - we’ll see how they do.
Finally, the little white flowering groundcover plant (photo) had exhausted itself, so we replaced it in the isolated spot by the gate with red-flowering broom plants.
There’s still quite a bit of prime real estate ground Gretchen to fill with annuals this year.