Meet the other Jenny Lind.
With a little luck, plenty of water, and some sunshine, this little plant should yield beautiful watermelon.
…for now, at least. We added some flowers at the front, and a bit of trellis for the cucumbers to climb. Hopefully they won’t attack the tomatoes, which are in the big terracotta colored plastic pots.
A big change from a couple of weeks ago, huh?
We are looking at the small area beside the house, on the factory side. This picture was taken from the sidewalk, facing the front of the house.
The massive shrub is my forsythia. I like it because it is large, established, and has pretty yellow blooms for a brief time in the spring. But. It is also massively overgrown. Again with the neglect of the outdoor things.*
There is a semi shady little spot next to the porch, where I’ve been meaning to plant some things.
Since there is also a small pine-y shrub there, the soil is acidic and that makes it a good spot for lily-of-the-valley. I love lily-of-the-valley. My grandmother had planted it at the cabin, and like many other things there, it has outgrown its original boundries. But that’s okay, ’cause it’s pretty. And is smells nice.
Who’s that peeking through the branches?
After a couple months of smothering the weeds with plastic and heavy objects, I pulled all that off last week, turned the soil over, placed the pavers to form a mini-walkway, and planted some plants.
At the back, on the left is a coleus from last year, that I tried to overwinter on the kitchen porch sill. It didn’t do too well, got kinda wood-y, but it was still alive, so I figured I’d stick it in the ground somwhere. After I gave up on it, of course, it has decided to get all bushy, healthy looking and thrive. Go figure.
On the right, at the back, is some lavender from my mom’s yard. She dug it up, just to see if it could be divided successfully. We’ll see. It looked rather dead when I put it in the ground, but has since perked up a bit.
All along the front are some hostas that mom’s friend Janie dug up and divided for me (to replace the ones I killed last year on the other side of the house), only she gave me far more than I knew what to do with. So I stuck the smallest ones in here, all in a row.
The soft, fluffy stuff on the far right front corner is artemesia silver mound. I love this stuff. It is so wonderful to touch. Nothing else quite like it.
And the small green plants in between the front and back rows are my lovely pink lily-of-the-valley that mom bought for me. Last summer. Which I never planted. But they’ve hung in there, so they should be lovely next spring. I also have some beautiful yellow hyacinth bulbs I want to plant here in the fall.
I know it looks a bit rough right now, but it should be pretty in the spring.
And, since the electric meter is on this side of the house, I have been striving to keep this narrow pathway accessible for the guy who comes once a month to take a reading. I hate when they estimate my bill. I work hard at conserving electricity, and I don’t like being overcharged. Not even for one month, knowing that they will give me a credit the following month. That also helps me to be aware of how much I am using. So, these pavers are for you, meter-reader-guy. Or gal. Whatever.
*Please forgive the Buffy-speak. I’ve been watching the series on dvd since Greg at Petch House posted this a few weeks back.
I was very proud of this flower bed. The hostas were from the POs, and I’m told they are impossible to kill.
But leave it to me. There were five last year, but only two came up this year. 
That’s about all I started with this year. Then we came up with a plan, did the prep work, and planted the seeds. By mid-May, it looked like this.
See, the biggest problem with direct sowing seeds is that it is hard to tell if what is coming up is a plant or a weed. Until it is too late. One of my gardening books has this lovely piece of wisdom:
Today, it looks like this:
The cosmos are about to bloom. My replacement hosta has perked up.
And the nasturtiums are filling out nicely, with a few blooms aready, too!
What. Is. It.
Just looking at these pictures makes my skin crawl. Have I mentioned that I don’t like bugs?
I found this ugly thing on my front porch this evening. There he was, belly up, with his legs and pincers (yes, pincers!) moving slowly. I think it was dying. Not sure. Hope so. Didn’t want to get too close. I was about to water the porch plants, so I set the sprayer to the jet setting and blasted him off the porch. Only then did I consider taking a picture might have been easier on the cement of the porch than in the grass. He’s on his side now. So gross.
What is it? How did it get here? Are there more? Should I call my bug guy? Will it attack Oliver?
Okay, I know that last one was a bit melodramatic, but seriously. I hope there aren’t a bunch of these…things…somewhere in the house. We don’t have big bugs like this. I have an exterminator who comes quarterly. He sprays for things like carpenter bees, carpenter ants, wasps, spiders, and other creepy-crawleys that plague old houses. But we don’t have bugs. We are clean. Sure, there may be golden retriever hair in the the corners, and I may have let my dishes go for two or three days in the sink last week, but that’s not enough to grow big, uglies like this bug.
Green Bungalow Craftworks 
