Greening up

Spring fever has set in. We've been totally busy at work and spending every sunny moment we can trying to whip the yard into shape. The goal was to get an early start this year - and we're doing OK. There's a big pile of mulch in the driveway, and about half the beds have been cleaned, pruned, and mulched. Now we're just waiting for these babies to really fill in...

Lady's mantle (geranium-looking guys) in front, snowberry hedge, white astilbes (left front), white dome hydrangea along the porch wall, and a variety of bulbs, daisies, and artemisia in front of the fence. Everything's basically supposed to be green and white. More importantly, they all made it through the winter!


And from the front, the two wraparound beds (the left one was in the other photo; it's mirrored on the right). Our baby snowberries (future hedge across the front of the porch) are doing very well - they'll just take a while to fill in. Not bad for bareroot starts (or as Ken said, we bought some dead twigs and they came in the mail?!).

Great friends, old wood, summer projects

We visited great friends this weekend down on the coast. Got to audition a new cocktail with Caribbean rum, and had a fantastic time in general.

And there was a bonus for all of us - as we stood on their newly-enlarged deck, they noted that some old deck railings were needing to go to the dump. Glancing over, Ken & I saw that they were actually in great shape and were pretty new treated lumber. Light bulb! Our first project this summer is going to be building piers on both sides of the front steps, and we need to start amassing some supplies (cheap!), so we loaded it into the truck (yay truck!) and hauled it on home.



A win-win, for sure. Not to mention the fabulous weather this weekend!