Yardwork

We've been busy little bees in the garden this year. All in one week, we planted 6 trees and an ornamental grass, dug a new flower bed and planted 40 or so annuals, potted geraniums for the porch, and got the garden started with tomatoes, cucumber, yellow squash, zucchini, sugar snap peas and lettuce.

The instructions from Wharton's for planting trees recommended planting annuals around the base of the tree as an easy way to make sure the tree is getting enough water. I thought that was a great idea. We decided to put a different kind of flower under each tree. This is "marigold". Wouldn't it be fun if I remembered that this particular tree was the marigold tree, and we followed suit for enough years that the trees have names and personalities, all tied up in their flowers?

Here are Abby and Anna, both roped into helping, and both thinking that I am crazy if I think we are going to get this done before the sun goes down. Turns out they are mostly right. We did finish that night though.

Here's the little flower bed I dug up by the back door. I plunked my first rose bush there in 2007 and it's been very happy, so I thought I'd try to expand a little. Mom would spend the winter looking at catalogs and drawing up diagrams. Abby and I both laughed at my haphazard plantings. I can imagine her closing her eyes and shaking her head and saying: "OK, Betsy."

Here's the obligatory shot of Anna with the tree, so that we can marvel at its growth someday.

And here's a shot of Anna with one of the pines. We are not marvelling yet, they seem to be growing at about the same rate... (2006)