Plantings

Wow, I even surprised myself today.

Yesterday I borrowed my neighbor's nifty tool that I can't even describe to you, and fairly quickly cleared out and enlarged most of one of my flowerbeds. Talk about a HUGE pile of weeds and grass! Oh, my!

Then, today, after it warmed up and we had lunch, the kids and I went back outside till I started teaching piano lessons, and then went back outside again after supper. I finished the weeding (as much as I'm going to do for a few days, anyway), and quickly planted:
4 dahlia bulbs
1 peony bulb
3 echinacea
5 salvia/sage
1 butterfly bush
2 other thistle things that I currently can't remember the names of
and probably some more that I'm forgetting as well.

Tonight I have a good blister in the palm of my left hand because I don't like wearing gloves.

I'm looking forward to seeing my labor's rewards in the morning, because it was dark outside by the time I came in tonight.

I am desperate to get stuff in the ground, as I know I'm late for some of it (like the bulbs). But then we were close to a frost (maybe it did?) earlier this week, and I had everything draped in bed sheets and plastic painter's dropcloths. (Those dropcloths come in handy, I tell you. -- See photography blog.)

Tomorrow I'm going to plant the one lone ecchinacea that didn't make it in earlier today, and then sow a bunch of flower seeds. Aside from sprucing up the bed and finishing the weeding and finishing the edging with a barrier, that bed is ready for blooming time. FEELS GOOD!