My Front Yard (11-18-10)

I was trying to draw my front yard with a fence on the side (there is none presently).

Garden Wonders (04-18-10)

I planted some heirloom tomatoes in the garden today:) It’s probably too early, but I don’t care: I wanted to dig in the dirt and plant something.

Large-scale tree work is to be done (by professionals) tomorrow; we hope to save parts of the ancient wisteria.

In the yard: wisteria, tulips, peony tree, lilacs, blueberries, raspberries, currants, spruce trees, camphor elm, white oaks, rose garden, vegetable garden, shade garden, hostas, calla lilies, lavender, gold dust, daphne, butterfly bush, magnolia tree, plum and cherry trees, lawns, azaleas, rhododendrons, peonies, hyacinths... Hydrangeas...Lilies of the valley...Bleeding Heart... It's truly lovely.

Gary and I went over to introduce ourselves to the people who share the flag lot next door (West side). It looks like there are some oddball characters in the neighborhood.

The front house is occupied by a family of four, but we only met the lady. She showed us her huge cat who, she said, can’t go outside because he eats squirrels. She seemed to not like some of the neighbors around and struck me as one of those people one does not want to tell too much to.

The back house is occupied by a couple, their grown daughters, and two grandchildren. Based on the assortment of non-working vehicles, miscellaneous broken toys and items thrown about (I am especially thinking about that large white cardboard box that has been discarded in the yard for who knows how long…), it doesn’t look like they have much time for house and yard maintenance . The back of their yard is covered with piles of wood (likely place for more carpenter ants...)

Sad day: the Rosa Mulliganii came down (08-30-08)

This is totally hearsay, but this is as I understand it: the people who seemed (semi-)interested in the house apparently came to see it with their parents, and the parents may have preferred another house that had just come on the market, etc. Result: no offer.

In the meantime, since we had apparently nothing better to do today, we spent the afternoon cleaning the yard, and filling the trailer with year debris.

G. cut down the climbing rose (rosa mulliganii) from the cedar tree, a sad thing, since it took me 14 years to get that thing to climb up and stay in the upper branches rather than snagging me as I walked by. (Picture me standing up on a chair and trying to get the long thorny shoots to loop over the cedar branches with a rake held up high over my head, and them cascading down on head). Anyway, we did this after an arborist had assured G. that the rose would eventually block the sunlight from reaching the branches, and thus impede needle production, etc. So, it's been all cut down. G. was very happy, I guess, as happy as anyone can be after quasi-nagging me for 14 years about how the rose-this and the rose-that, and he finally got to take it down.

Looking up this rose on the web tonight, I just found out that it is the "perfect" rose to grow on cedar trees. Whatever. I have, like, so much moved on mentally that I don't care. All that's left is the base and the roots, and that, I am going to dig up and take with me wherever I go. No point leaving anything that people won't appreciate. Call me cynical; I just take comments that my yard is a "jungle" rather personally.

In the end, and surprisingly enough, the yard looks bigger. Let's see if that gets us some traffic, haha, and maybe people will notice that there IS a yard, all 60 x 100 of it.