Mulch and More

Last week I took off three vacation days so that I could concentrate on getting a fence moved, raised beds for a garden built and the front flowerbed started. Ambitious, I know. It was around 50 degrees that Friday when we started work. Angel, myself, my mom, my brother and his girlfriend put in a lot of time that day. We were rushing against time, because, unfortunately, rain and cold were in the forecast. Curt brought a load of low grade, mulch for my raised beds, we shoveled out the entire load Curt brought, then ran to the local greenhouse, Westwood Gardens, for a load of fresh new pine mulch for the front bed.

At this point we have all but completed weeding the front flowerbed, pulled up the Magnolia, put down weed paper, mulched in 80% of the bed to raise the level, planted the new Japanese Maple. The two raised beds for gardening are built and filled to brimming with mulch. We've pruned all the trees and bushes, weeded and mulched two additional small beds. There is still a lot to do to get it up to looking great! I have bushes to plant, a garden to put in soon, bulbs to replant once they bloom because of raising the bed level, a side azalea bed to clean, not to mention the backyard we have hardly touched yet!

We have the only flowers on our street! Most everyone has bushes and beds that look nearly as neglected as ours did prior to this project. Unfortunately, we will have to move the fence another weekend as the utility lines were not marked in time. I had Curt mount the bikes, wheel barrow and weedeater in the garage instead. He is starting more of the plants I want in the CofO greenhouse. Our goal is to have flowers to cover the entire growing season so I'm excited to be getting to do that! The physical interaction of digging, shoveling, etc causes the muscles to ache. But it is so good to be able to work hard that I'm enjoying the aches!