My Flower Beds

Let me show you them.
I probably should have taken a "before" picture . . . but I didn't, so I post what I post. Before, the front yard was completely empty. Then, one day, I came home and found my grandpa and my dad putting this trellis in at the side of the house, right where we had to dogleg to miss it every time we backed out of the drive. It was not ideal, but I didn't want to refuse my grandfather's gift; he made the thing himself. Thought the house needed something. Anyway, I've since moved it to the front, where it works a lot better, but makes mowing more complicated. Today, I put in two new flower beds in the corners of the walk, and yes, I did kill more grass than necessary on the left there. Good of you to notice. It's hard to see clearly in my cruddy photo, but they're edged with bricks recovered from the chimney we removed from our dining room, arranged along an arc of a circle with an eight-foot radius. This way, anybody should be able to mow right up to the bricks without needing to stop--just follow the curve. Now that the beds are in, I'll soon add Clematis flowering vines to climb the trellis, but for now, at least the beds are mulched and have "Big Bird" Hemerocallis lilies planted on each side. They don't look like much now, but soon enough they should look like this:

(Click photo to see where it came from)

Of course, that's only one small project, and tomorrow's is already lined up:

My little "shop" in the backyard. It's hard to tell here, but I painted it last year and painted the trim dark green, which made it look a lot better. Still, it's just kind of plonked down in the corner of the yard, and it's a pain to keep the weeds down.





You can also see that there's not much in front other than dirt, a few stones haphazardly piled to make a step, and a couple of big, cavernous holes where everything from rabbits to cats to my idiot dogs have burrowed under the shop. This building will be getting a small wooden porch and steps to make the front cleaner and safer to use.

Here you can see what lurks off to the side . . . . all space I want to reclaim for a useful purpose. You can also see the white spray-paint line that marks where the flower bed will be edged. The corners are arcs from 6-foot-radius circles, so again, mowing around this area should be quick and easy with almost no trimming. Eventually, most of this corner of the yard will be a small vegetable garden, since it's one of the few spots I have that get sun almost all day.

All that will have to wait, however. Dad has the day off tomorrow, so first . . . . we fish!