Spring Cleaning

This weekend I decided to begin the arduous task of preparing my yard for spring. That may sound kind of silly... but for me that entails things like weedwacking the patio, blowing the leaves from the lower forty into the leaf beds, getting my overflowing urn ready to turn on, etc.

I started my Saturday morning at my beloved Grower's Outlet. I initially had the idea that I would replace 10 or so dead Pittosporums (Japanese Mock Orange). The Grower's Outlet only had the variegated version, or the compact version. I decided to buy two of the compact varietal and see what happened. I also, of course, managed to buy a few other plants: a new painted fern (only to get home and realize mine was still alive and coming back), a tobacco plant (no joke... and it has beautiful flowers!), a new Encore Azalea, and a few others.

After the Grower's Outlet I swung by a family nursery that was on the way home. I heard that they sold lime trees, so I stopped by to see. They do, and a whole bunch of other fun, random plants. I think Navel Orange trees are the most fragrant plants I have ever come across. I have decided that a lime tree, and an avocado tree will be my next big yard splurges... more about that later.

After leaving the nursery empty handed, I dropped by Lowes to look for a new electric weedwacker. My mother had found the highest rated one on Consumer Reports for me, and so I was on a mission to find it. No luck at Lowes... so I snagged some garden magazines, some ground cover plants to use around my bird house, and a new 100 ft extension cord. I loaded up the car, and headed to Total Power, a local lawn mower store. Total Power was a huge success. I walked in, asked the owner if they had a Stihl FSE 60 in stock, handed him my credit card and was on my way! He told me that the reason I couldn't find Stihl products at Lowes or Home Depot was because they were a family owned company, and they only liked to do business with other locally owned stores. He also offered to teach me how to rethread my weedwacker when I ran out of thread. Pretty awesome store.

By the time I got home it was 11:30. I had spent the whole morning out shopping! It was time to get to work. Before:

The birdhouse

The lower 40

The patio

The loot

And after 4 hours of weedwacking, mowing and blowing... the after:



It felt so good to work in the yard for a whole day! No baby fescue yet, but my seeds are coming along very well!



Water Features!

I come from a long line of "real" gardeners which have influenced my idea of what a garden and yard should look like. My mother's mother and father lived in Ellijay and had an acre vegetable garden as well as a beautiful yard with almost all native plants. My father's father grew up on a cattle farm and had an extensive home garden here in Atlanta. I have also watched my mother create an enormous pond with a waterfall in her yard. To give you an idea of the size pond she created, she is using a pool pump and filtration system to keep it up and running. Pretty big. SO, I decided I wanted a little water element in my yard as well. My first course of action was to fix the little elephant fountain I already owned, but had let go.

My dogs had decided to dig out from behind the fountain (which is solid cement) so my first task was to level the area out again. I used the weight from the elephant to rock the back of the basin up far enough to wedge bricks under it. Then I cleaned the pump, crossed my fingers and plugged it in. It worked! All that I was left was cleaning the area around the fountain up and planting some new azaleas. They are a bright reddish orange. The next task was a little more daunting. I needed to prepare the area I wanted to put my new water feature, an overflowing urn.

I chose the area to the right of these steps as the new home of my fountain. This is an area I have never tackled in my yard, and have really tried to ignore. There is an old cinderblock retaining wall, a huge tree, and lots of junk. But, I am trying to tame my yard, and this is the next spot on the way to the lower forty.