garden day

After taking Doodles for a walk this morning, I spent the entire day outside working in the yard. I started by raking up the dead moss from the lawn, then moved on to weeding & aerating the soil in one flower bed. I hadn't anticipated creating a new flower bed today, but nevertheless, I have a new flower bed off the deck. The deck, which I hate, will hopefully have posts & a railing in the not so distant future, creating more of a country-porch feel.

This was what I started with, and actually, it was just the tree & we just planted the boxwood last week & extended the rock border over to the deck. And speaking of rocks as landscaping material ~ HUGE in Juneau. While we're walking Doodles, Honey & I always look in people's yards for ideas. Virtually every yard will have some form of rock landscaping, I imagine because of their wide abundance. Whether they're black & white speckled rocks smoothed from years of glacial activity, or flat, slate-colored rocks from the beach, we have rocks everywhere.

and this was my vision for the little space:

Porter seems to like it, too. Is he not the most gorgeous dog ever?

This is my end product. It still looks horribly bare, but I have to keep reminding myself that the cottage garden I envision in my head takes years to create. Unless you have a lot of money, which I don't. I do love gardening, though. So therapeutic. Man, I can't wait for my plants to start blooming!

Our lawn still needs some serious TLC. Honey sprayed the lawn with moss killer a few days ago, and I don't know what my next step is. More moss killer? Fertilizer? Just grass seed? Mom's coming over tomorrow to assess the situation & to make sure I haven't placed my plants improperly. When it comes to gardening, I learn as I go. And I get lots of tips from my mom, who has been gardening for as long as I can remember. I do have gardening books, but I tend to get so excited about a project that I jump right in without doing my homework first.

Besides a new garden, I also gave myself a nice little sunburn today. (Self portrait taken because Honey is in Gustavus for a bachelor party this weekend) It didn't occur to me to put on sunscreen, nor do I even own any presently. Hopefully tomorrow will be sunny again so I can even things out ;) I don't know if there will be any gardening in my future tomorrow, however. With each passing minute, my poor body gets more & more sore from the hours of digging. If only I could channel Porter's digging for good instead of destruction. I am sure he's still trying to figure out why he is not allowed to dig in the yard and I can. Me, the lowly person responsible for feeding him & cleaning up his poo, can dig but Doodles the Wonder Dog cannot. Yeah, life's just funny that way.