The first lily bloom of the season. My goal this year is to grow some Lotus!
My Orogold rose finally bloomed which is stunning.
The loot from Home Depot that I am anxious to plant! Most is going in the front though I did get a few treats for my shade beds as well.
Me manually trying to remove the sod which I was doing fairly well at, if I do say so myself but it was VERY time consuming.
Post sod cutter. The green left in the middle of the yard was a strip the cutter did not get and the strip against the driveway is my original planting bed where the grass would not stop growing into it. I hated that bed but we pulled out the horrible jasper that was originally there and I knew I was going to redo the whole yard eventually so I did not bother to condition the beds - as a result they were like concrete and I hated weeding them or doing ANYTHING to them - they made gardening torture seriously.
And here you can see our giant day lilly, sage and Irish moss patch. Towards the right is my pile of hand dug sod "chunks" and in the distance you can see the sod rolls.
Sod rolls and towards the sidewalk little bits of grass we had to manually pull. Far easier and faster that my manual method.
And here you can see the grass left which is staying.
The side yard which I did remove the sod from manually last year until they started the sewer project so I had to stop and Patrick was having a nightmare trying to remove with the sod cutter because the ground was all choppy. So most of this had to be redone by hand since the weeds over took it.
The pile of sod after removing it from the yard - and this is not all of it...this pile has since gone completely down and then rebuilt again with the manual chunks from the side yard and the flower beds.
The removal of the flower bed.
And the start of the tilling ala Patrick.
The pile of fill dirt and horse manure compost and this is after I was able to manually shape the remaining lawn.
Our nemesis x 2 are garden stakes and that pile of plastic meshing on the right...ugh..
Getting started on the planting...or replanting from the flower bed.
Shoveling...
More completed on the side yard...
And here you can see our rhododendron farthest away and in front of it is this gorgeous shrub the sewer people replanted WAY too close to our rhododendron and crooked. So, the plan is to dig this up and replant it in front of the fence in the side yard section since it can and will get good sized if allowed to and will make a lovely backdrop.
Here is the side yard where the shrub would go...on the closest side of the downspout there is a tiny green spot which is this gorgeous plant that came with the house and gets sort of grassy looking with these long puffy purple flowers. I have not seen this poor dear bloom in years because my husband keeps mowing over it. I have been able to salvage nearly all the plants which came with the house with the exception of a few things that were very poorly planted leaving me no choice but to remove them.
The view from standing in the side yard looking out. You can see to the left the patch Patrick was not able to get since it was on a hill. I love our neighbors Micheal and Lorie's rose garden. The poor roses have piles of tall grasses growing around them I plan to "weed" out for my neighbors while I am pulling out the sod because I think my weeds might have caused theirs but either way I rock at weeding and you should NEVER allow long grasses around roses - it attracts VERY bad bugs for roses.
