My Rookie Garden

So I've mentioned before that I'm not really into gardening. I don't know the first thing about it except that I hated pulling weeds as a kid and I still do. I also don't really care to get hot, sweaty and dirty. And then there are the bugs....and spiders - need I say more?

But this year, after a very long, cold winter, the gardening bug hit. Well, maybe it was more of determination to beat something that has, up until this point, completely defeated me. That something...making plants live and grow and maybe, dare I hope it?...flourish into something beautiful and lasting. And so, I present to you my first, all-my-own-design, flower garden.

The above picture shows most of the thirty-foot long area that sits behind our pool and deck. The retaining wall was already there when we bought the house, but up until last fall, was completely covered with overgrown ivy and a few ugly holly bushes and weeds. The entire area was covered, even the vertical wall. Andrew cleared most of it out last fall and I finished yesterday. (Oh, the buckets will eventually be filled with live plants, but it's rainy and cold today.)

The tree is my Mother's Day gift from Emily and Andrew. It is an ornamental cherry tree. It looked bigger in the store. I've never attempted to plant a tree before, so this should be interesting. It should turn pretty colors in the fall and have showy white blossoms in the spring. We'll see about that! This sits at the corner of our property.

This is the view from the property line toward the cul-de-sac. Eventually there will be some type of border /edging, but I'm not sure what to use. I bought some black edging that goes in the ground, but I don't know. Until yesterday, it was roughly edged with river rocks, but it had become quite over-grown. Oh and the ugly plant between the two pinkish flowers and below the left bucket is one of the remaining holly bushes. I don't really like it, but I didn't feel like digging it up either, so we'll see how it looks. Right now, it's just ugly.

And finally, the long view. The complete garden...all thirty long feet of it. It looks pretty empty right now, but hopefully there will soon be mulch and in a couple of years, the perrenials should all spread, so it should fill out nicely. That is, if the curse of my black thumb doesn't make an appearance!