Aftermaths

I think we're on week five or six of the Great Thorne House Re-Landscaping Project 2008. You can't see very well in this photo, but the hostas have moved from along the front walk to up next to the house, and around the two trees on the boulevard. Yet more hostas have moved from the front walk to in front of the garage. I think I have four more hostas left to move, and then the Great Hosta Diaspora will be over. Oh, except for that big one on the corner, maybe.

We had a very strong straight-line wind the other day, which resulted in a lot of smaller branches down in our yard, and some larger ones down in our immediate neighbor's yard.
And then there was the next block up, which was still not open to traffic this morning. Thankfully, this tree didn't fall on any cars or houses, so it's just a nuisance.

It's not easy to see in this picture, but there is a huge twist in the branch that fell.

More Spring Pix

This is the giant hole that Rex has dug underneath the tree in the front yard. The scrawny little plants next to it are tiger lilies that the dogs have trampled almost to death. I don't know if I'll be saving those--I may just give up on them. It's not as if we don't have a zillion more tiger lilies around.

This used to be an ugly little scrubby bush, which Adam dug up a couple of weeks ago. These are Sweet Black Eyed Susans.

These are Smooth Blue Asters, which will hopefully be lovely and attract butterflies.
This is the south side of the house. I dug up the rose bushes (that you can barely see here) last night. So now there are Meadow Blazing Stars planted underneath the furnace exhaust pipes, instead of ugly dying rose bushes.
This is a not-so-great picture of my super great new fences on the east side of the hosue. Next to the stairs, I planted Elegant Camas (also known as Mountain Death Camas, since the roots are poisonous). Around the corner, I have tiger lilies, some of which started there and some of which I moved there over the past month. I was going to continue the fence around the south side of the house, but the dogs have been leaving the new plantings alone, so I might not put more fences around.

And this is a picture of the kind of things you see on my bus ride.

Spring Rebirth

Yet another resurrection of the house blog! Hooray!

My goal this year is to rehabilitate the flower beds on the east, south and west sides of the house, including large portions of the front yard. Two dogs does not a pretty yard make, but we're going to do our best to grow some grass back. I volunteered at the Friends' Plant Sale this year, mostly so I could go to their pre-sale last Thursday. I came home with several types of native wildflowers, and I'm hoping that they'll be able to exist happily with little to no input from me.

Here are some pix of the sale. I'll try to post pix of the yard, too.

This girl brought her hamster.