have a beautiful garden

And I’m not talking about the Christmas kind. I had an out of control Eugenia in my front yard. I whacked away at it a couple of weeks ago and it’s more in control now, but I need to take the electric timmers to it to shape it into a nice neat square now.

These are the things I need to get done Memorial Day weekend once I’m back from my trip

• Trim the Eugenia trees in the front yard
• Hedge my Camilia
• Do any weeding that needs to be done – I’ve got some odd stuff cropping up in the yard
• Clear the other half of the yard for Phase Two

Four weeks ago I took the week off and went on a major weeding and then planting purge. My backyard looked like a jungle. Not only did it rain just about every weekend I was home this winter, but it fueld the weeds to grow nearly three feet tall.

After a couple of days I had the whole yard weeded. I planted a few plants I had in the house that needed to go in the ground – one with bright pink flowers that someone gave me for my birthday last year, a miniature yellow rose bush that my dad gave me after my nonie passed away that was on it’s last legs, and two cute periwinkle flowered plants I bought at trader Joe’s.

I also went to Home Despair Home Despair to buy some plants. I bought a flaming light and dark orange Charisma rose bush (I already have hot pink tea rose, light pink long stem, deep red long stem, plain yellow tea rose and yellow with pink-fringed petals bushes. People say roses are hard, but I’ve grown addicted to them and I find caring for them meditative (gardening in general really.

Roses aside, I bought some colored calla lilies. I already have some thriving white ones, but bought three plants in dusty purple, yellow and rust for some variety. I also bought two five-star jasmine plants, two lavendar plants, a bright red geranium and a yellow snap-dragon plant.

I also planted some sunflowers (from seeds) and summer pointsettas, finally put an apricot tree in the ground, and my dalia’s are coming back in full force.

So far everything is doing pretty well in the ground. The plants from trader joe’s and the one I got for my birthday are struggling a bit.

what I need to do now is keep up with new weeds, hedge my camilia bush and find some plants to fill out the shadier part of the garden. I also have some succulents that are multiplying, so I want to seperate them and plant them around the border of my yard.

Wow, writing out everything I did really makes me realize how much work (and fun) it was!