One Mission Accomplished

It's a gray day outside and the forecast is for rain the next few days. I am so glad I took advantage of the beautiful weather we had yesterday.

Wednesdays are "me" days: I take a Tai Chi class with a friend at our local community college, then we "do" lunch, sometimes with another old friend. I always look forward to Wednesdays, coming home tired, but in a good mood. Yesterday was no exception, except the weather was so beautiful--bright sunshine, mid-50's, but feeling much warmer--that I felt guilty about not getting outside to accomplish some yard work. By the time I got home at 4 I was tired, but checking the forecast, I saw the rain coming. So I forced my protesting body out of the chair and gathered up the necessary tools for one simple task--expanding my roadside flowerbed.

Two years ago I created a small flowerbed in front of these burning bushes. I planted coneflowers and Stella d'Oro daylilies, two of my favorite perennials, along with some Victoria blue salvia. They have done very well, and I've gotten a lot of compliments on my plantings. But every day as I returned home, I realized the bed was much too small. So my goal this year is to expand the flowerbed in front of all the bushes.

Now this bed doesn't look very big in this picture, but I remember the work it took just to dig up this small area. We had rented a large tiller for my vegetable garden, but it was so big, only my son could use it. So I decided that I would make things easier on myself this time.

I had found an article that suggested laying down a layer of newspapers to kill the grass first. This sounded like a good idea, since spading up the grass is the hardest part.


I laid down the newspapers and fastened them with landscaping U-clips I purchased at the local Menard's. Now I'm sure you experienced gardeners have probably used these clips, but they were new to me. I wish I'd had them before when I tried to lay down landscape fabric on a windy day!

The area still looks too small to me, but it's a start. Now all I have to do is wait about a month and hope the grass has died enough to make spading a much easier task this year.

I'm not sure what all I will plant here yet, but I was inspired by an earlier post of Lisa's at Greenbow to start with some zinnias. The rest is still a blank canvas--time to check out those gardening catalogs again!