Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Year of the Yard part one

When we were lucky enough to buy the house we live in now, I had three thoughts:
1. This house has SIX (potential) bedrooms. Yahoo!! That means we can have more babies!!

2. With this house we double our square footage, thereby giving us more space to put our stuff! We could NEVER fill up all this space! (turns out we filled it up immediately--all we had to do was find a place for all the things I had stored like a brainteaser puzzle in our previous house. We just spread them out a bit...)

3. This house sits on a HALF-ACRE!!! I can't wait to fill up that half-acre with plants rather like I had the closets of our old house filled up! Y'know--EVERY INCH!!

So I went to sleep at night with all my plans and good intentions swimming 'round my head. Well......turns out that a half-acre is a lot of land. Especially when you don't have a sprinkling system, and you get pregnant and have two babies in the space of 3 1/2 years. And you let the yard go the first summer only to realize that the lush, green yard you fell in love with will now take many summers to get back. SIGH!!! Turns out the way to do this is to tackle it like eating an elephant.....one bite at a time. You have no idea how much this pains me. Apparently I crave order more than I thought I did and to not be able to "whip my yard into shape" like I want drives me NUTS!! Oh well...might as well get started!



Last year we dug out and amended the front flower beds next to the sidewalks. I sent away for some bulbs and shade plants and got them in the ground while I could still bend over.....however; apparently tilling gave new life to all the grape hyacinth I thought I had killed with Round-up. For those of you who don't know, grape hyacinth is an innocuous-looking little purple flower that comes from a bulb. Being a purple-lover, you'd think that it would elate me to know that I had inherited such a BOUNTY of purpleness......

Not so. Let me illustrate.....



Observe how the grape hyacinth foliage blends seamlessly into the grass beyond.....That's because it is as THICK as the grass beyond!!!!!

Here is more of a close-up:



This is my son who sold his soul to me for the price of Guitar Hero. He gets to help me in the yard. Hehehehe!!



This is what grape hyacinth bulbs do when nobody's looking.....





Do you see that unholy large bulb in the middle? That is the culprit!!! One bulb like that let loose and it's all over!!!

These bulbs must be STOPPED!! We dug and dug and dug. We filled a two-gallon bucket four times with the little buggers!! And now......



An almost clean slate with which to create!! Now only 54/55ths of an acre to go!!

6 comments:

Carterista said...

So...we both toiled in the yard yesterday? I found an anomeli in mine. And while thankfully easier to remove than grape hyacinth, it was much, MUCH GROSSER. Check my blog! Ü

Peggy Eddleman said...

I saw you out there working hard yesterday morning-- it looks so pretty now! I'm so excited for you for mother's day to come so you can plant and plant and plant and plant...

kellieanne said...

I love the blue and yellow color! I am also excited to see how the moss spreads and softens the new walkway you put in. I love your yard! I love your son! I love that your son pulls out the yuck bulbs out of your yard! Praise be Spencer for helping you out!

Unknown said...

Wow, those "warning" spam guys must be out in force. I just saw the same comment at Erin's blog. Someone said clicking on it might crash your computer so I am not going to touch it.

Anyhow, were was I? Oh, is that what those things were in my yard. I kept pulling those things out and the fact they had bulbs made me nervous. I thought maybe I was pulling out flowers or something. But since they seem to be the only thing alive in my yard I figure they must be undesirable since the flowers I DID plant certainly did not survive.

i'm erin. said...

ohhhh that looks so beautiful! I have the same problem with those nasty grape hya-whatevers. I am very excited to see what else you do with your yard...in fact, i loved your last home's yard so much I wanted to buy your home just so I could have the yard. Dang that Jenny C, for foiling my plans.

Haley Hale said...

I hate hyacinth. Good job on getting rid of it. And you must teach me your ways of luring your children into doing what you want them to. Do you think that bribing a two year old with guitar hero would do me any good?

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