Are you ready for some shoveling?

Spring is terribly late this year, and as much I’m longing for those warm and sunny days I have been convenience by the rain and cold nights putting off the fact that we had to do something about the front yard. It looked worn out after the unusually wet and cold few months. Some plants had given up as they were not meant for several layers of snow, nor were they in relation to wetland plants, and so they had either frozen to death or drowned. Even with the compliments of our fully landscaped yard kept still coming in, I saw the sadness in it, as my eye seemed to catch the dead rosemary and rotten grasses, the ones that slugs had inhabited and bunnies slaughtered what was left of them. Even my heathers had started looking somewhat wispy. The only plants that had enjoyed the late spring were my ferns, the ones that have always looked like they would have rather been someplace else. But spring really is late with rain clouds still pushing more wetness our way, and I haven’t seen a sunny Saturday in months.

I love our little garden gnome that moves from one place to another when the kids don't see.

We redid our front yard a few years back by first approaching a dear friend of mine, whom was going to school to study horticulture and landscape design. I convinced her to take a look at front yard with mossy grass and a couple of shrubs that I really didn’t care for, and so she did.

This had to go!

Trying to grow a beautiful lawn in the Pacific Northwest is more or less of an endless project as you start over every single spring by moss removal, aeration and over seeding whatever is left from the previous year. Then you fertilize the muddy mix like a lunatic to make it grow in the cold spring weather, ending up with a lawn that requires mowing every other day, until it dries out in July unless you water it for an hour twice a day. Our lawn wasn’t big, but even as little as it was, it was way too much work and we were craving for something easier and hopefully sustainable.

A lot harder than what it looks!

By her gracious help and skill, our new front yard was created. Over a month and a half, we removed the grass, and found some unknown new muscles as a result of physical labor that our office-rat bodies had not been introduced to. That was followed by some more heavy duty labor of shoveling the mud piles from one spot to another to create mounds and a back ache. We bought a cubic yard of gravel and several bags of beach rocks, and moved those from the truck bed to where they were going in the burning heat of spring sun. As the big “cherry on top” we planted our brand-new garden in pouring rain, meaning in rain that soaked through our Gore-Tex jackets, caps and was dripping off our noses, but finally it was done and looked absolutely amazing. We looked quite amazing too.

I told you it was raining!

It has been awesome! We’ve replaced a plant here and there, but mostly we have thrown some mulch at it every spring, and that has been it, I mean, until this year. This year it looked terribly sad, as I told you in the beginning. This year we needed to do some big-time maintenance of redoing, replanting and replacing. On Saturday we shopped around, and finally ended up at the good old Home Depot. Limited selection maybe, but quite affordable and mostly good quality plants. Not organic, but I wasn’t planning on eating them anyways. We drove home with the back of my Volvo filled with garden soil and plants, small plants to save money – I have time to wait for them to grow. In a light drizzle we planted and moved and the dead ones we threw into the yard waste bin, the ferns I donated to a neighbor with a shady yard as I know my ferns won’t enjoy the yard once the sun finds its way to Redmond. On Sunday, we drove back for mulch and some planter flowers. About $200 later, and less than 24 hours from starting the project we are ready for spring once it decides to find its way over here as April showers didn’t seem to bring May flowers but just more showers.

Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful,’ and sitting in the shade. – Rudyard Kipling