Playing Dirty

I suppose it was inevitable that our relaxing (read: lazy) weekends would give way to days of toil, so it didn't come as much of a surprise when Cary ordered 30 yards of topsoil/compost mix last week. Yeah. Three-oh. As in a heaped dump truck AND its trailer. The dirt was delivered Friday around noon, and bright and early Saturday Cary was off to rent a Bobcat.

Let the summer projects begin.

As the tracks in the "before" photos show, I was a little late taking them, but you get the idea: grass and more grass.

We added dirt to extend four existing flowerbeds — one by quite a bit; I think it's now five or six times its original size — and created a new island. (Actually two new islands, but one is out front and doesn't look like much just yet.)

While Cary moved the dirt, I dug out and moved the thin-split rock we had been using to outline the beds. (I'll reuse it to create raised beds in the rose garden... but probably not this year. I like to pace my punishment.)

On Sunday, we set out the plants we've been buying since last Fall... and then started digging. At last count we'd planted 48 shrubs, perennials, and tubers including a crape myrtle, a rhododendron, a Daphne, peonies, roses, lilacs, verbena, lavender, potentillas, and who-knows-what-else.

It looks a little puny right now, but in a couple of years — with mulch and a few more plants added here and there — it should be right lush. Assuming the plants survive the Thunder Feet of Sherman, that is.

We've already bought another dump truck load of gravel for the paths, so stay tuned...