Adventures in Gardening

On Saturday I was determined to plant along our retaining wall in our backyard. I had drawn up landscape plans for all areas of our backyard months ago, and revised the plan for the retaining wall recently. I need to see plants when we looked out at our backyard.

We visited several nurseries within a 3 mile radius of our home. All but one were closed, and the open one was interesting. Perhaps I was spoiled growing up visiting my aunt, who has worked at nurseries much of her adult life. She always worked at orderly, clean nurseries, and she is SO knowledgeable about all things plants. The local nursery wasn't quite what I was used to. After guessing at where to park, I stepped over crushed beer cans and was met with two rather large dogs. I walked to the covered plants and was met by a worker who I quickly informed about my plants. As I talked to him, Danny stood, holding Christian (two big dogs...they could have had Christian as a snack), and I noticed he was keeping his distance. As I talked to the nursery worker, he didn't know what half of the plants I wanted were...including a LILAC (he said, "what does that look like?"). I gave up...as I knew that my desired plants weren't as "exotic" as he thought, and we bid him adew. When we got in the car, Danny told me why he was keeping his distance: I was standing on the carcass of a dead rodent, and when I finally stepped off it the dogs grabbed it and fought over it. NICE. I was glad Danny didn't tell me what I was doing, as I probably would have thrown up, or screamed, or both.

I called a few more nurseries to find that my plants are less "exotic and hard to find" as the nursery worker told me. I ended up picking up ALL my plants at ONE nursery and got to work right away. My sweet olive shrubs, the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow shrubs, Lilyturf and Azaleas (among others) look just lovely. Though I nearly fell off the wall a few times, I was happy to get it all done within a few hours. Just in time to bake lemon bars (from scratch) and go to a new neighbor's house for dinner.

The view from one end to the other...starting and ending with white azaleas

One of two azaleas...so pretty!

Ok, so I can't fit the full 75' in the frame, and it doesn't look all that impressive from this view...but let me tell you, the 20+ plants I planted are an improvement on the plain dirt there previously.


Now I am looking forward to watching these lovelies grow. Next weekend's project: weed our dirt to prepare for concrete.

Welcome to the weed jungle, courtesy of the recent rains.