Gardening Fun

After our excursion to the Goat Hotel, errr...um the garden shop, the kids and I did some yard work. Kyle and I worked on taming the wild Forsythia in the backyard while the girls worked on digging holes to plant the new flowers we got. Digging holes should be easy, but at my house nothing is every easy! The soil is primarily clay, then add to that tons of tree and shrub roots and large rocks and you have a digging nightmare. In about 2 hours Sarah managed to plant a small lavender plant, 2 very orange begonias (one which Kyle accidentally chopped off), a daisy looking thing, and something else whose name escapes me (see the picture - it's the pale yellow stuff).
Here is an overview of most of the garden. I still have to plant the gerbera daisies and the asters. I also stopped on my way home from work today and bought some petunias and a second lavender plant for Sarah. Once everything is planted, I have some red mulch to put around it all.













Here's the pretty yellow thing whose name escapes me. The low green and purple stuff (left of center in front), also can't remember what it is, I planted 3 or 4 summers ago and it just keeps spreading. Good thing I like it a lot!













I scalped, actually de-limbed, my forsythia bush. I would like for it to look more like trees than a shrub. If we decided to drive one of the cars into the fenced part of the yard, this thing tried to attack the car, scraping the sides with its woody stalks. Now the greenery and limbs are up high so the cars can drive "under" the canopy. I like the way it looks for now, but it will fill back in if I let it! I still need to shape the top of it, but this requires a ladder and mine is super rickety. It'll have to wait for a day when I am feeling super brave (or just plain stupid).













Close up of the asters and daisies. I love these two colors together. I decided that I would try to keep the garden a combination of oranges, yellows, and purples. Then I went and bought pink petunias! Go figure!!!