Wow. So it's been over a month now. Obviously, Matt and I have been busy in the yard. However, this week we've done a lot of nothing. I worked a lot, which is also my story for the whole month of July. It's also very hot here. The radio said it was the hottest summer on record here. Blah. We installed soaker hoses in the garden beds (by "we" I mean Matt.) We are in the process of getting the trees taken out. I still sometimes feel a twinge of bad treehugger coming out of me from time to time. I remind myself that it's for the remaining trees' health. I think our final number will be eleven fully mature trees in our yard. The tree service has done everything except grind the stumps out, which they're doing tomorrow. No pictures this time. I don't have time to upload them. The blog is just a side track right now. I actually got on to see pictures of our adorable nephew, Jason. The cutest baby ever! I thought I knew where the camera was, but now that I think about it... I have no idea. Not too much in the way of visual appearance has happened to the yard. I did finally weed-eat the weeds in the back left of the back yard to the height of the grass. It looks a lot better now. I've been working on breaking down the old carriage house foundation. Since that's probably the sunniest part of the backyard, I want to get working on that ASAP. However, there is a lot of old, pebbly concrete back there. We will post pictures as soon as we can of the new look of our yard sans overgrown trees. Our next tree project: removing the dead wood out of the trees. And there's a lot of it!

And We're Back to Blogging

Busy, busy, busy. But now things are settling down a bit. It's also getting hot in St. Louis. The high 90's for the next couple days and it's humid. Blah. Anyway, we've finally gotten back to the yard again. We've had birthdays, weddings, baby showers, and a graduation all in the past couple weeks. Let's see what the pictures say about the yard. Oh, Memorial Day weekend, we rented a wood chipper. Those things are big. It definitely struck me with a sense of my own mortality. Feed a six-inch log into the chipper and watch it get crushed in a matter of a few seconds. It was like the nightmares of Texas Chainsaw Massacre all over again. I have pictures of the chipper but I think they're in my May picture folder. I'll have to post them later because after this post I'm going to bed. These pictures are the result of us chipping our cedar tree. It was growing sideways. If you don't know, cedar mulch is expensive so it was worth it for us to chip the tree up. I really thought that a whole tree would end up in a bigger pile than this. Anyway, we also got a wheelbarrow (finally!) I've been wanting and needing a wheelbarrow for quite a few months. Makes hauling dirt and compost from one garden bed to another a lot easier. I love our wheelbarrow. And we got it for $30 because it had a couple of scratches in it. It's not like I wasn't going to scratch it up anyway hauling cedar logs around. Since we have a whole bunch of cedar mulch now, I've been mulching everything. I mulched the front bed of boxwoods and impatiens and man do they look awesome now. Well I better sign off for now because Foo is awkwardly making a bed out of my lap.

Some Shady Characters

Now we're all up-to-date. The boxwood and impatiens in the front bed were planted throughout the week last week. The caladium (big, leafy plants) I planted next to the air conditioner yesterday and today. The picture of the weeds with a bare patch is what I accomplished after about 45 minutes of sitting in one spot of weeds and pulling them up. I have about 20 times more weeds to pull. Ugh. The bare patch of dirt is also where all the gross gray and pink worms were saying hello to me. So gross!

Matt's Victory of the Vine

Matt was finally able to get most of the dead vine off of one of the trees. He started killing the vine last autumn. All the brush in the yard in these pictures is all vine. This was a HUGE vine, as you can see. In the first picture, that's the tree it came off of - the one on the right. You can see the dark mark winding up the tree where the vine was. The device he's holding is our extendable tree pruner/saw. Go Matt!

The Front of the House

This is the bed which we planted the astilbe. They have yet to sprout. I dug them up two weeks ago to see if they had rotted. They were just starting to grow roots. Before I replanted them, I added sand, compost, and humus to the soil. I'm just going to have to be patient with these. This is where the one daffodil was. In the sunny corner, we planted some geraniums.

Only two of our mums survived from last fall. Since the bed was fairly empty, we planted yellow marigolds and red salvia. The little, old lady across the street really likes to look at them.

We've always had a spigot on the west side of the house but it didn't have a handle. Matt fixed that little problem. It's really nice having a hose on that side so I can water my front plants.

Here is the large bed in front of the front porch. We tilled up dirt and mixed in compost and humus. It took us a couple days to do this, needless to say. The boxwoods and impatiens are going in this bed.

Matt, the Brush, and Grooming the Trees

Here is Matt cleaning up the remainder of the sideways tree that we took down the weekend before. Foo and Ollie are supervising. They are really good at watching us and looking cute.

I'm Ready for my Close-up, Mrs. Bender

Having the irises in full bloom allows for many pictures to be taken. The white ones are gorgeous. Enjoy!

The Irises are in Full Bloom!

The irises! The irises! This is the first time I've ever seen them in full bloom. All the full grown plants are blooming. The babies will get big enough this year to bloom next year. Most of the irises are white or deep red. The two next to the patio are yellow. I had no idea which plants were going to be which colors. I took these pictures last weekend, which also happened to be the last sunny day we had. Of course, I never mind the rain. The less I have to water the garden!

The Enormous Task of Cleaning Up the Trees

So here we are tackling (helping) our trees. These pictures are from the first of May. The pile of wood in the first picture is what is left from the tree that was growing sideways in our yard. It was about 30 feet tall. Since it was already leaning into our yard, it fell right into our yard. In the second picture, we also cut off the who-knows-how-old 30-foot sprout from this tree. It had strung itself out over the middle of our yard. We have a little more sun in our yard, but not much. The taller trees still make sure we have no more than partial sun anywhere in our yard. Next, I'll be posting pictures of more irises blooming (very pretty) and the tree and brush cleanup in the yard. For now, back to the yard. Matt has just uncovered a whole bunch of weeds for me to pull up. Yeah!

Daffodils, Rockcress, and Black and Blue Sage

Here are the last of the "survivor" plants. The black and blue sage is in the pot. It definitely didn't like to be overwintered in the basement. He may eventually go in the yard like the lemon verbena. They're good pals. The sage is starting to flower now. He gets almost-black shoots and then produces blue flowers. In the other picture, we have the rockcress which is almost flowered out in this picture. He had quite a few white flowers on him in early April. Behind the rockcress is the daffodil that we transplanted from the front yard. He was in full shade and by himself. Poor Daffodil! So after he was done flowering, we placed him by the irises.

Hostas, Bleeding Hearts, Ferns, and the Sweet Woodruff

Here are most of the plants that Gail will recognize quickly. The ferns, bleeding hearts and hostas are from her garden! The hostas are loving it in the partial shade under that tree. They're twice as big as they were last year. One of the bleeding hearts is as big as the hostas, as you can see in the first picture. As for the ferns, they're the same size as last year. The one on the left doesn't like the amount of sun he gets. I may move him to the far right. We'll see though. He may go somewhere else in the yard after it's "gardenable." The sweet woodruff (the low plant with white flowers) has doubled it size. It LOVES where he's at in the garden. He gets clusters of little star-shaped flowers. He also smells of vanilla. Apparently, the Germans use this herb to flavor wines. Matt says the woodruff is going to take over the entire bed soon! :)

The Survivors

Most of these plants are the ones that survived the basement over the winter. The first one is of Matt's Australian bottlebrush plants. We've been growing them for three years now. They still haven't bloomed. Three of those plants didn't make it over the winter. The second picture is of my lemon verbena. I love this plant even though he doesn't like to grow in a pot. When we're done spraying Round-up all over the yard, we'll put him in the ground. The third plant, is our sedum. He's been faithfully coming back year after year (in the same pot) and has even survived my old apartment basement (aka. the basement of death). The sedum had a bad insect infestation in March which he got from the wedding mums in the basement. He's much better now. The fourth picture is of the Narcissus we transplanted from the front yard. They didn't like the transplanting which is why they're all limp. We'll see how they turn out next year. The last picture is of my dear peonies. They're not very tall but at least they're alive. When we transplanted them last April, they didn't appreciate that and one turned black! I thought it was a goner. But both plants have shot up leaves this spring which makes me happy. They won't flower this year and I'm not even holding my breath for next year. Perhaps the year after that though they'll flower.

I have posted a lot today, but there are still more pictures that I want to upload. I hope to get them all up by this weekend. I have to get to bed though. Please check back later as well to see what I've got posted and for new things as they come up. Love to all!

Where the Vegetables Sleep

Here is our vegetable garden. We built a raise bed with the help of my mom and stepdad. We went with a raised bed because we didn't have time nor patience to dig up a place in the yard. If I remember correctly, there is 1200 pounds of dirt in that box! We planted edamame (green soybeans) which are the leafy sprouts. We also planted red onions, white onions, and garlic. Those are the grassy looking plants. All the crappy looking stuff are our maple tree's contribution - seeds! I'll be pulling those seedlings out for the rest of my life.

The Saginaw Brick

So Matt got a Saginaw brick for Christmas. I'm not quite sure of it's origin, but I know it's from where Matt grew up. We decided it would be a great starter to our yard. It now sits on the edge of the patio as a starter block to the rest of our yard projects. Here is also a picture of our blueberry bush with his first two blossoms along with a ladybug! How cute is that? These irises all budded at the same time. I took that picture on 05/01/10. There will be another picture of them all in bloom later.

The Red Irises

The first of these pics is from yesterday. The other two are from 05/01/10. These are the red irisis in bloom. They're a deep red with a deep yellow at the base of the petals. And yellow caterpillars. That's what Matt calls the fuzzy part of the flower at the base of the petals - caterpillars. I'm actually a little shocked at my amateur photography on the last pic. I don't impress myself too often.

And now we're getting somewhere

Here's where we're going to find out how many pictures I can post to this blog. Hopefully, more than just one. If not, there will have to be multiple posts or I'll have to throw them on to Facebook. So I can post five at a time. We'll see how it goes. All of my irises were passed down to me by my Grandma Jacobs. Of all the irises, it appears there are only two plants that produce this interesting yellow color. They are yellow with a splash of ochre and streaks of white. The fourth picture is of the flower garden with all the irises budding. The last one is of the flower garden and vegetable bed. I'll elaborate more on the vegetables later. This is just the start of very many years of gardening in the yard.