22 March 2009

Why my back hurts

Once upon a time, my house looked like this. Pretty bare, huh? So I decided to do something about it.I moved in my house in Fall 2003. So in Spring 2004, I started doing some planting. There was an apple tree seedling growing over on the far side of the garage where no one could see it and where it didn't have room to grow. So I moved it out front. I planted a bald cypress in the back.


And a river birch out along the property line. You see, the winter of 2003-2004 was very wet. My backyard looked like a swimming pool. Rather than undertake expensive draining of the yard, I decided to soak it up into trees. Unfortunately, as it turns out, 2003-2004 was a very wet year around here and we haven't had that much water since. The trees, I fear, are going to limp along.


I also put in what I hoped would be a hedge row of American cranberrybush. I love those bright red berries in winter, and the viburnum flowers just look great in summer. But you see that silver maple down at the end of the row?



That damn tree is sucking the life out of everything around it. Out of my burning bushes. Out of my cranberry bushes. Out of my garden which also went in during 2004.

It's pretty amazing what one $2.50 packet of seeds can do for your yard.

This year, I got some free mulch from the electric company. Ok, "some mulch" may be an understatement. I got two piles as large as this one. I started in on the other pile first because the electric company guys put it over onto the city's property and I didn't want any trouble. So I worked on it for 2 days.


And this is 3 days. And then someone stole my wheelbarrow out of my yard. So there it sat for 2 months.So yesterday, I got busy and took care of the last of the first pile. Whoo hooo! All gone.


And this is where it went.



Won't be long before it looks like this. Plus, I won't have to mow behind those bushes this year!

Man, I just love spring. And fix-up projects. I can't wait for the pictures I'm going to take this year.

1 comment:

  1. Looks really nice D! You've done a stellar job with your house, inside and out.

    ReplyDelete