Yardwork

I spent today on some outdoor projects. I finished putting sand in between the stones of the walkway I mostly finished last fall. It looks pretty good. Hmmm... I didn't think of taking a picture of that, but I did take pictures of the things I planted today. They're below the fold.

First up, I planted two clematis in a little arbor that I made by a fence. The raccoon and fox were presents from my mom and grandma, years ago. The little raccoon (on one of the blocks) was in my garden back when I had one, and probably got mowed over several times before I found it last fall while digging the walkway. As for the large blocks, they were the original porch for the door into the garage. It looks like someone poored conrete into buckets, with a divider in the middle. I like them better here than as a porch.


The next two are raspberry plants. The first is a black raspberry. We had a black raspberry bush when I was growing up, and I missed it when it died off (probably due to lack of sunlight; the neighbor's trees kept growing up around it). So I'm hoping it will grow. Below it is a gold raspberry plant. No clue what gold raspberries are like, but if it survives, I should find out in a year or so.



This isn't a new plant, but my lilac bush seems to be doing well this year. It's almost as tall as I am now!


And this last one is my ornamental plum bush. It produces beautiful white blooms in the spring, but if any actual plums develop, they're too small to be seen. *shrugs*


I haven't been doing much with my yard the past few years. There are many reasons, but probably the most important one is that my outdoor water-faucet leaked more water into the driveway than actually made it through the hose. I finally got it fixed last summer, so I'm feeling enthusiastic about actually having a nice yard again. Actually, my goal is to turn it into a semi-Japanese garden. I don't really want much grass. I'd rather weed a garden than mow useless grass. Now if I can just remember to water those new plants everyday for a while...