“Laboring for a Better Yard”

One of my pet projects is to clean up the yard at our house. It used to be a nice yard, but the people who lived here before us didn't take care of it. (Today, I cut, chopped, and stacked about 1/3 cord of wood, and outlined the shrubbery at the front of the house with stones).

I've cut about 25 feet into the brush on one side of the yard, planted Holly, and spread new grass seed (which is doing quite well).

In other areas of the yard, I've killed grubs, fertilized, re-seeded the lawn, planted new bushes and two new trees, pruned a couple of overgrown dogwoods, and hacked my way into the monstrously overgrown forsythia (sp). What a nightmare!

It's improving, slowly. The front lawn looks pretty good now, and my (small) Azalea flowered beautifully. My two Manchurian Lilacs have loads of buds on them, and I'm pretty eager to see what they're going to look like... the rest of the Lilacs (in other yards) are already open and smell wonderful, but I haven't ever seen a Manchurian Lilac before.