The weekend project

This blog entry could also be called 'what I didn't do on my vacation', or 'what I was supposed to get done during my last vacation'.  But I didn't do it then.  I would have had to take off my pajamas, and I didn't want to do that.

So, this weekend I decided that the new shade garden would be dug in, edged, mixed with compost and filled with plants.    I dug out manageable chunks of ground, and then I spent eight hours yesterday breaking them up and separating soil from the grass, and sifting out weeds and roots.  (That plastic that I laid down on the ground in late May to kill the grass?  It didn't work.  It was starting to, but I didn't want to wait.  So I dug.)  Today, I edged for 3 hours, and then finally filled it with plants.  I may never stand tall again.

As always, I ask that you pretend that I've got a lush, healthy, green lawn.

I buy baby plants to save money.  When they grow up, I'm hoping that you won't be able to see the soil at all.

Hey, RR - I've got a sittin place!  It's hard to tell, but I've got baby steppable ground covers planted all around, between and in front of the concrete blocks so that you can put your feet down in front of the bench and not get muddy feet.

I need to stain that bench.  I inherited it from the former owner of my first house.  He was a professional gardener who worked on the provincial grounds before he retired.  By the time I came along, he was 97 but unwilling to give up his gardening.  He had a few chairs and seats spread around his garden so that he could take a rest, and he left most of them when he moved out.

I didn't know it then, but he was planning to come back.  He did pop in fairly regularly for the first few summers.  I'm not sure if he was checking in to make sure I kept up his gardens, or there to pass on the skill.  Either way, he taught me a lot about gardening, so I left the seats out there for him until he stopped coming.  Most were in pretty rough shape, but this one is still good.  It needs to be stained though.  I've got purple, blue and brown stain that I could use, but somehow I feel as though it would be disrespectful to paint his bench another colour.  I might end up going out and getting a small can of red stain, in his memory.

ps - the disco balls.  Fun and whimsical, or tacky and wrong?