When I woke up Saturday afternoon, it was raining. It rained Sunday, too. And today, it rained some more. Sigh. And just when I was about to lose hope of ever being able to work outdoors again, today's rain became a drizzle, and then a mist, and then nothing. So I got crack-a-lackin'.
All that rain made it easy to pull up weeds, and once I got started with the weeds I went kinda crazy and pulled up all the vinca in the front yard. I hate that stuff. Or at least, I hate(d) the big bed of it that grew all over the sidewalk, wrapped itself around the rose bush, twined across the front porch steps and threatened to take over the whole front yard. I think I might like vinca that behaves itself. Maybe. This stuff had been allowed to grow wild for who knows how long.
So now, instead of ugly vinca in the front yard, I have a big ugly patch of nothing. Not much of an improvement, right? But just you wait. I have big plans to turn this part of the front yard into a cottage-style garden. As soon as I rake up all the junk that's there now and get the rest of the vinca roots out of there, I mean.
After I yanked up all that stuff I moved on to something a lot more fun. A whole lot prettier, too.
I planted up this wall planter that I got at Hobby Lobby. I used impatiens, alyssum, and that vine-y stuff I don't remember the name of. Now that it's done, I wish I'd used something else in it that trails down a little more. Oh well. (By the way, the planter didn't come with a coco liner so I bought one and cut it myself. There must be some trick to cutting those darn things. I tried to use kitchen shears and it didn't go so well. If y'all know a better way, please tell me.) This planter is to the right of my front door. I tried to back up and get a photo of the whole front porch so you can see it better, but the dog was hurling herself against the glass in the storm door and I was afraid she might actually break through it. Libbi is a little wild. Just a tad.
After that I stuck some petunias and some more alyssum (I really like alyssum) in a couple planters on the steps of my side porch.
Those steps really need some paint on them...and so does the porch floor. Truthfully, the whole porch floor probably needs replacing, but that's a project for another time. A time far from now, like right after I fall through it.
And for the grand finale of the day, this:
I can just hear y'all saying, "Ummmm....it looks just exactly like it has for the past month..." It does. In fact, I had to double-check to make sure I had the most recent photo of the back of the house because, well, they all really do look pretty much the same. Hopefully, though, this will be the very last time we can say that. Because...today I finished the prep work. Hooray!! Which means that tomorrow I can put some new paint on the house! Tune in tomorrow for a partly-yellow wall—at last!!
