So recently Stu and I decided that we were tired of having nothing in our yard but sand and weeds. He is redoing our retaining wall, and it looks awesome with the new red blocks!! With that step in progress we were motivated to continue the pretification process of the rest of the yard as well. Since it is a rather large space we’ll have to take this in stages. Oh, also because neither of us has a clue what we’re doing when it comes to plants. You’d think some of my grandma’s amazing ability with plants would have rubbed off, but I guess it’s a learned trait, not something you can inherit. 😉
Anyway, we’ve got quite a few plant “projects” for this season. I had this strange dilusion that within a night or two of transplanting our various experiments that we’d have a yard that was a veritable bower of blossoms and green growing things. Uh…. not so much. 😉 Ha ha! Lesson number 1 it takes a few seasons, at least, to get things established AND thriving. If they survive at all. Ha ha! Lesson number 2 for me was to read the directions on the supersoil bag. Oops. Lesson number 3 is WATER!!!! lots and lots of water. Apparently the reason why our yard is full of sand and weeds is because that’s basically the only thing that can survive!!
We had one really windy day (not unusual) after I transplanted the little Celosia flowers and most of them wilted and sad due to lack of water to combat the scorching wind. *sigh* I’ve been watering them well 2x’s a day now, but it’s so difficult to keep sandy soil moist!! Some of them will never come back, but a lot of them rallied, and that makes me happy. They really are pretty little flowers, and an interesting fact that I picked up online is that they are edible and used for medicinal purposes in some countries.
The honeysuckle vine and the English Ivy seem to be doing pretty well. Though it’s difficult to tell when you don’t know what to look for. 🙂 I figure if the leaves aren’t turning yellow and brown that they’re doing okay. Ha! The honeysuckle blossoms are lovely!!! And they smell so pretty too!!
I got a bunch of plants that said “sol” and needed 6+ hours of sunlight. I forgot that with the 3 rather large trees in our yard that it’s actually a pretty shady place when they have leaves. 😉 So I’ve had to rearange a few of them, but that’s not hard since we planted them in pots. Hopefully now everyone is comfortably situated with enough sun and water to encourage life and growth. Time will still tell.
Either way I’ve enjoyed puttering about in the yard this spring. More than I expected I would! It’s fun to see some progress, and hopefully we’ll not only have some nice green and flowered plants, but also tomatoes!! That’s for another post though! I have to show you what Stu has done with the tomatoes! Wish us luck, I know we cant expect to be transformed into master gardeners on our first try, but I’m still hoping that most of the stuff survives. The creeping Myrtle as well as the vines seem to be doing the best so far. Hopefully the rest will adjust quickly.
