Yard Work

Before the June drought, when my area got less than 1/3 of an inch of rain, I spent every day working on my front yard plantings. Not that I am a big gardener but I do enjoy getting my hands dirty once in a while. There is a large 'garden' in my front yard that had turned to weeds and grass over the past couple of years due to a mis-directed clean-up effort of mine that removed all of the pine needle mulch and replaced it with standard bark mulch.

I have now learned my lesson.... pine bark mulch only lets you see the weeds better while pine needle mulch really kills weeds. Besides, pine needle mulch is free when you have a few large pines trees in the yard providing the mulch.

My goal was to weed the front garden, divide the liriope (monkey grass) to fill in any holes plus plant some perennials and a couple of little bushes all topped off with about 800 pounds of rocks over landscape cloth to provide a path to my bird bath.

Some of what I planted did not make it through the lack of rain but most of what I planted seems to be working on gaining a foothold in the planting area.

Here's how overgrown the liriope had grown in the foundation planting area..

and here is what it looked like thinned out
The bird bath was in the backyard but was not getting much use due to the dogs so it is now in the front yard and has been getting quite a work out. I have had this for years and some day I will figure out how to keep the black stuff from coming back without poisioning the birds. The little circular disk is used to prevent mosquito breeding.
The little white flowers below are supposed to be daisies but they don't seem to like the heat. I hope they getting bigger is it would be nice to have some tall flowers in this area.

Here's a little planting near the front door. I didn't do much here except thin the shrimp plants. That big old rock came from a yard of a former home of mine that the movers moved, ever so carefully to this home. You should have seen all the protection that was provided for its transport!


I think I am done digging in the yard until it cools off again. Every few days I venture out early in the morning to pull more weeds and errant grasses. And,yes, I have been watering (even though it kills me to put drinking water on the yard) so I have lost only a little from the lack of rain. The biggest problem seems to be that the squirrels really like the little bushes and have been burying stuff under them. Also, Alex has been providing his own watering and that has caused a couple of losses.

All in all I'm pretty proud of the revamped front garden. Not a designer garden but definitely an improvement.


I wonder what I will do in the Fall to improve on the work from this Spring?