Weeding

I've pretty much finished with this year's rehab of the northern foundation bed. Have returned all my "family" named daylilies, divided and transplanted hostas for the shade area, and filled in with other perennials and a few of my favorite annuals. It has the rock edging, a layer of manure, and a layer of mulch. Jerry planted grass seed for the other bare spots and it is taking hold in most places.

This is how it looked prior to the 2009 wall replacement. Everything was moved, some things came back and others didn't. Then we enlarged it to go to the end of the house. The yellow trumpet vine, which I really liked, was going to destroy the siding (suckers) so moved it to the south fence line. The large evergreens probably wouldn't survive another move so left them where they ended up last year and bought new ones.

This is how it looked in the middle of last year's repairs. This was certainly a chance to make lemonade out of lemons as far as changes. I always hate to take out things even if they aren't working well. This forced me to move some of those.

We have "almost finished weeding" all the beds except the dreaded east beds. The huge rains were making some plants grow too fast and cover my summer perennials. It was hard, hot and dirty work. Now I need to get the mulch down on those beds and get my garden finished. It is very late to get the garden going but with vacation and rain, there's not be a good opportunity. We have decided we'll do it tomorrow hell or high water - kidding, maybe.

Visited and had supper with Al and Shelly DeCrane. They are adding on to their house and we volunteered to help them stain siding this weekend. They have both been helpful many times to us (also my source of manure) and we're glad for a chance to help them.

My daylilies have started to bloom. Three early ones have been blooming for about a month (Stella de Oro, Happy Returns, and Bitsey) but now the big ones are starting. Always my favorite time for garden results.