Garden Before and After

My sister is gone. We had a pretty nice week. There could have been a little more fun, but that's life. We did get the garden done and some excellent shopping. It was amazing how quickly we get the yard in shape. A couple of afternoons of hard work. It looks a little sterile and bare but once the plants get growing it's going to be lovely. Right now it looks clean which is a wonderful change.

This first picture is my sister, Kelli and the red arrow is pointing to the bed - not yet prepared for plants. Here's the after of that side. There is a purple clematis far left and far right a pink peony. In between are two types of lavender plants with some purple lobelia and some other white bedding plants.

Here is a before picture of the area by the front fence. It was a mess and there was nothing planted there. The garbage and recycle cans stood there and it was such an eyesore! I still don't know what I'm going to do with the yard waste can - probably keep it in the back. I've also moved the garbage and recycle bins to the side of the house where I used to keep them. Now it is all cleaned out. There is a white climbing hydrangea in the corner, two pink Rhodie's (which probably won't bloom this year) and two orangie/purple clematis plants. They should bloom this year but won't be spectacular until next year (I hope).

Along the north fence there were some iris plants that I could never get to bloom and bulbs and lots of weeds. Now there is a Rose of Sharon in the corner, pink Azaleas and scarlet carpet roses. This isn't a very good shot but when there are blooms I'll take more pictures.

Finally, in front of the windows I left the big pink rose bush, we scored my favorite rose (Angel Face) and also planted some purple and cream colored Columbine and white African daisy plants, which would spread out.

The grass is growing like crazy! I have to mow it every five days now or it gets too tall. I am grateful that it took so well.

So .... I did do a bit of knitting but I'll leave those pictures for later. It's 5:30 and I haven't even gotten to read the paper yet today. I have to go back to work tomorrow and it's going to be crazy. My stuff was moved into my new office but I will have to unpack.