anyone for a hosta salad?...

violas

So, over the weekend, Jbo and I spent every waking minute outside working in the yard.  Still not done.  But closer. We are done with planting the new stuff that we bought last week.  In fact, we planted half the plants on Saturday and then the other half on Sunday.

Prior to planting the second half, I went out to wander and check out our new plantings and imagine how beautiful they will be in the summer...and that's when I saw it...oh the carnage!

after the deer...

what this hosta should look like.

6 of the 12 hostas we planted were eaten!  Nearly down to the ground!!  Also several tulip blooms.  At closer examination, I spied deer tracks.

Those pesky, cute little things had a tasty salad, made up of our freshly planted hostas!  A mixed salad with colorful tulip heads!  UGH!  It had been a while since I sprayed the "fox urine" onto the plants to keep them away.  That'll teach me.

coral bells

candytuft lower left

and it's gonna take money - a whole lotta spending money...

It's gonna take plenty of money to do it right child ~ It's gonna take time a whole lotta precious time ~ It's gonna take patience and time mmm to do it to do it to do it to do it to do it to do it right child.

Over the weekend, as we have pretty much since we've purchased this house, we had a discussion about the landscaping. Things we'd like to eliminate and things we'd like to add.

We'd like to eliminate more of the ground cover in the boulder garden in the back of the house and we'd like to see the bed along the driveway have more of a WOW factor.

Problem is - I really don't know what I'm doing when it comes to landscape design.  I'm good with decorating the house; picking the colors that we both like that complement each other and placement of items, but when it comes to the garden - I really have no clue.

It's so vast and we'd really like to have a full, colorful, organized garden like those that you see in magazines - and also certain neighbors have really got it together too.

Over the years that we've lived there, we've gotten rid of a lot of invasive plants that were taking over.  So, now the space is pretty blank.  Well, right now there are plenty of crocus, tulips, daffodils, squill and other springtime plants, but once they are gone - that's about it.

So, we found ourselves again in the middle of an argument (sort of) this weekend about what we should do.  I've been piecemealing the garden together; buying things that are on sale at the end of the year and then putting them where I think they would work - one item at a time.  This is not working to get the lush garden of our dreams.

In order to do that, it is going to take money.

I have been talking about getting a landscape designer out here to take a look and suggest some things and draw up a plan.  But this is always met with obstinate disagreement from the other person who lives at the house...who will remain nameless for the moment.

At least I got him to agree that he needs to help and be a part of the decision.  It's not that hard to have him agree to something like that, but to put the plan in motion is a little harder.  I'd much rather him be on board with something that will cost some bucks rather than me spending and feeling guilty about the amount I'm buying or spending.

One of my most favorite places to visit and buy plants is Block's Stand & Greenhouse.  They have tons of selection, acres of greenhouses and "rock bottom" prices.  I've been going there since Jerome's colleague told him about it back in 2003.  Back then, I worked at JTE on Plymouth Road and Schaffer in Detroit...so not a very long haul to get there from work.

I found out yesterday that they opened for the season on Monday and that they had some specials going on.  So, I emailed Jbo to ask him if he would like to go there after work.  He was fine with it and so we went.  Total trip from work to Block's to home (according to Google) 104 miles; 2 hours 11 minutes...so about 3.5 gallons of fuel at around $14.  But it was well worth it.  It was Jerome's first time there and he was overwhelmed at how big it was and all the choices.

We ended up buying quite a bit and hopefully it will fill in a bunch of the empty spaces.  Here's the list:

2 Azalea bushes

2 Rhododendron bushes

2 Red Current fruit bushes

1 Hanging Fuchsia basket

2 Flats of Violas

3 Containers of Coral Bells

3 Containers of Lupine - which I've been trying to grow from seed...not working very well.

3 Containers of Garden Phlox

6 Containers of Candytuft

24 Containers of 4 varieties of Hosta

24 Containers of Stella De Oro Daylilies

It's a start.  Oh, and all of that fit in the back of a VW Golf!

 

Not to make this post much longer, but on our way home we stopped in at the Lawndale Market.  It was a stop highlighted by my birthday present ~ Roadside America for the Garmin GPS.  If you click on the Lawndale Market link, you can read all about it.

And as we continued our way home, we passed by none other than SANTA!!!  He looked pretty authentic, but didn't seem amused that I was trying to capture him in pictures...this one was the best I could do.  As I told Jerome, if you've come to terms with the fact that you have a belly like a bowl full of jelly, you may as well grow your hair and beard out and become an authentic looking Santa Claus.

And this is everything we purchased at Block's.  We're going to have a busy weekend.  I still don't know what I'm doing, so I hope we do it right child.

 

summer blooms...

daylily

This rose (according to its tag) is called 'Chicago Peace'

Love-in-a-mist

I think this is called a 'mop-head' hydrangea.

I had moved a couple of these hydrangea's when we first moved in; four years ago. This is the first year that they actually had buds on them - and plenty! I hope this means that they will be budding every year.

It may have been the amount of snow that we had and the fact that they were covered with snow pretty much the entire winter - so no cold wind could get to them. I think this winter I will cover them, so that it will protect them. You can never count on the Michigan winters to be quite like they were last winter.