Ouch. Just ... Ouch.

I hurt. A lot. It's been an incredibly busy (but productive) weekend. And I still have a day left!

Saturday I ran a lot of errands. Tyler got his stitches out, too! I also went to the garden center and got quite a few of the things I wanted for this year, not least of which was a bunch of plants.

I had ordered some perennials from Spring Hill Nursery awhile back, and unfortunately they arrived just around the time Tyler had the corn cob incident. But even if that hadn't happened, the weather had turned cold and rainy during much of that time, and I couldn't have planted them anyway.

So they sat in the box on the porch for two weeks and I did nothing with them. I was afraid I'd killed them, but it turns out what I did wasn't such a bad thing. When I finally unpacked them this weekend, according to the packing directions I found in the box, if you can't plant them right away, the best thing to do is leave them in their original packing in about 40 degree temperatures (a refrigerator crisper drawer is recommended). Well, they sat in their original packing material on the back porch, where it was around 40 degrees much of that two weeks, only getting into the 50s sometimes during the day. They seem to have survived just fine.

But knowing they were dormant, bare root plants - which look like nothing more than dead sticks at the moment - I knew I'd need to fill in with a lot of annuals until those perennials get established and do some growing. In fact, even after they do I'll probably still fill out some areas with annuals - they're pretty, cheap, and I like them.

So I bought impatiens and violets and some other things I can't remember right now, but here's a picture of them all anyway.


Before I could do anything with them, though, I knew I had a ton of work to do in that bed. First, removing two large shrubs.


I wanted those two round evergreen shrubs to come out, so I had the whole area from the tall pointy evergreen to the pond to plant up. That was the first chore of the day. It took me and Greg both digging around them to finally cut them loose, then I hauled them out forcibly, put each in the wheelbarrow, and wheeled them to their new home by the back fence - which also involved digging two large holes, then heaving the shrubs out of the wheelbarrow and into the new hole.

And that just about did me in. That was only the beginning, but the whole rest of the day was just sheer determination and willpower, because I hurt all over by the time I was done with those shrubs. Comparing them to the 40 lb. bags of compost I hauled around later, I think those shrubs weighed between 50 and 60 lbs. Ouch.

After that I dumped three of the bags of combined compost and manure which I found at a local hardware store into the new de-shrubbed bed, then dug that in ... over and over and over. I just kept going through, digging it all up and turning the shovelfuls over, then taking a 10 minute break, then going back and doing it again. Four or five times. But I can't believe the difference it's made! That whole bed consisted of very hard clay soil - like most of northeast Ohio. I'd made the mistake in the past of trying to plant things there without doing anything with it, and it was always mostly a disaster. Shrubs and hostas seemed to do okay, but any type of flowers usually just withered and died. I finally did some studying up, and knew I had to seriously condition that soil if I had any hope of having a nice garden bed there.

So when I found those bags of compost and manure, I knew that was the ticket. And I was amazed at the difference after all that digging. The soil looked wonderful, crumbly, soft, all the big lumps of clay just sort of disappeared. I didn't know it would happen that fast. I thought it might take weeks or months before the compost began helping the soil, but it was pretty much instant.


I still want it turned a few more times, there are still a few too many clumps for my liking (small ones, though) and my energy was flagging rapidly. So I didn't get anything actually planted today, but I should be able to do that tomorrow (if I can move).

I did accomplish one whole project, though. The strip of dirt behind the pond is too narrow to plant anything in, especially with the soil so compacted back there as it is. I tried to plant a few things back there last year, but it was just pointless. The only thing that will grow back there is weeds, and that's what happens. I decided since I can't (or am not going to) move the pond forward, the easiest thing to do would be to cover that strip of dirt with the flat rocks, then to have anything growing back there, put a planter basket on the fence wall with some trailing plants that can hang down over the basket and maybe even as far as the edge of the pond.

So I did get this planted and put up.


It's got three petunias (because I just like them, my dad always planted petunias), and in between those, two Calibrachoa plants called "Million Bells Trailing Blue." They are supposed to hang down over the planter, so when this fills out, I think it will be really cool. I still have to get in there and clean out the weeds and mess behind the pond, and fill it with rocks - I didn't get to that today.

So ... a huge amount of progress. And there's still quite a bit to be done. Right there in the front of the pond, I have to get some more dirt in there - the soil level is too low since I built up the wall with those big flat rocks. I'm not sure where I'm going to get the soil from, I think I have some bags of topsoil in the garage, maybe that'll work. I have to dig that bed through a few more times, then plant all my plants. It's not going to fill it out yet, I didn't get enough in that one trip. I wasn't sure how many I'd need, and ... well ... I can only do so much at one time. Just getting the middle section cleaned up was a major ordeal. The ends can be worked on over time. There is so much to do here now that I've started wanting to fix up the landscaping, it's all going to have to be done over quite a bit of time.

There was one more project worked on today, but it's not done and I don't want to post pictures till it is. But I'll give you a teaser ... we're putting in a lighted waterfall at one side of the pond. And it's not made out of rocks. In fact, it's not made out of anything 'natural' at all. This probably falls into the category of 'junkyard landscaping.' But it's going to be cool when it's done.

And now ... I'm going to go have the hottest bath I can get my hot water heater to give me, and hopefully come out of that able to move and absent my current layer of garden grunge.

But wow ... it was a good day.