Back at work

Classes started up again this week and so I'm in the midst of course planning, advising and all the other delights of academia:  notably, meetings upon meetings.  BUT, we did manage to spend our last weekend of free time cleaning up one of the eyesores in our yard - the space where all the recyclables, garden tools, firewood and things waiting to be cut up for trash have been resting.  I don't think I took the time to take a photo of the eyesore, but I'll share what we've done this week. 

After cleaning the crap out and reorganizing our tool storage we had this expanse of boring block wall, topped by another 2 feet of painted white wood that our neighbors had done to extend the fence higher.  I don't mind that extension, but the block wall is pretty unattractive.  So we went to the local garden center and talked about options for planing in acidic soil with no light and terrible, sandy soil.  They recommended creeping fig, and so we got 5 of those to spread out along the strip:

They will cover the block wall with a sheet of green soon.  And they will thrive in the crummy soil (although we did amend it before planting).  I look forward to a wall of green here - and we're going to place some decorative pots with annuals in them along the strip in the future.

We went to Lakewood Nursery, because the reviews on Yelp! said they were helpful and had a good selection. And it was true, super helpful people who gave us great advice on what to put in this space, and helped us pick out a great climbing rose, too:

 

This rose is going to be planted to the right of the garage (below), we'll build a trellis up the wall and under the eaves to encourage the rose to grow along over the door.  We had a lovely climbing white rose when we lived back in Indiana that we loved, so we found something similar to that. This one is called "Pearly Gates" and the flowers start out a pale blush pink and whiten as they age. 

 We also dug up this little planting area to move our two taro plants.  They require a lot of water, so after digging down, we embedded a super large bin that we then planted these plants into, and just drenched the soil.  We are hoping that the bin helps to retain water so it doesn't just soak down.  The plants seem really happy right now!

Again, super happy with the customer service at Lakewood Nursery, and we spotted a few more plants (and they'll order anything I need if they don't stock it) - we'll be back again for more advice and plants!