More front garden progress...

Sometimes the amount of work there is to do seems so easy and like it won't take too long, but then reality sets in and before you know it you're in the dark.
There was not a minute of free time for us this weekend.  We all woke up early to watch Sweet Pea's team play their last basketball game of the season.  Her 7th grade team beat an 8th grade team by 11 points and she played great, a fun way to start the day for sure.  As we drove up to the house we saw a dump truck parked and waiting for us to dump the soil we ordered.

Luckily this is what the sky looked like when we drove up and stayed pretty much that way all weekend.

Here are the 8 yards of soil we ordered.  It smelled so good!  Nothing like the smell of good soil.  Those piles didn't seem so bad at first, but after 2 days of shoveling it seemed like it would never end.  And when it was dark and we were still shoveling it on Sunday I didn't care how good it smelled anymore either, I just wanted it gone.  And it had to be finished since it was blocking my car in the garage.

One of the jobs my husband did was to put these edgers in along the driveway and sidewalk.  One reason was to make the edge look nicer and the other was to raise the soil a few inches.  I really like how it looks.

The soil underneath is mostly clay so the extra depth will hopefully allow to mix the good soil in some when planting new plants.

The smaller bed was filled by the end of Saturday.  I plan to grow Scarlet Runner Beans on the trellis.  On the trellis by the fence I moved over a Clematis that had been in the front bed.

We ran into some problems with the larger bed which took time we weren't planning on.  My husband had reinforced several places along side the beds, but it still bowed out a bit when it was filled.  We had to dig out soil along the edge and then reinforce it even more.  This was filled by the middle of Sunday.

The last panel was put in place!  We ran out of time to finish the gates, hopefully in a couple of weeks we'll have a few hours to finish that and the arbor.  Then all that is left will be to paint the fence white.

While my husband worked on drilling holes in the concrete to set the last two posts, I started  filling up the raised beds on our side yard.  The only mistake we ever made over here was using pea gravel around the beds rather than crushed.  It's impossible to wheel anything over pea gravel so all the soil had to be carried in using large tubs.  That was quite the workout since all four beds needed a good 6 inches or more of soil.  All I kept thinking about as I carried the tubs was that I won't feel guilty eating lots of chocolate tonight!

All the beds in the front yard got a nice new layer of this good garden soil, which has quite a bit of compost mixed in.  It was dark when we finished so I don't have pictures of the finished beds.  Tomorrow is the last dry day predicted so I need to go and unbury all the plants that had soil dumped on them in the dark.  What a relief to have that done!

I was hoping we'd get the gates up this weekend but we ran out of time and daylight.  I'm still very proud and excited about what we got accomplished.  Now at least I can get planting!
Luckily the girls both got to do something fun while we did the hard work.  Sweet Pea went to see "Gnomeo and Juliet" with her friend and the Littlest Gardener went to my parents home.  When my Mom brought her back home she brought us homemade meatball sandwiches and apple crisp.  What a great way to finish the weekend!
All words and photos in this post are property of A Gardener in Progress.

Fertilizer Friday - 16 days until spring!

It's been awhile since I've had a chance to join in on Fertilizer Friday, but I made sure I had time to take pictures yesterday between rain and hail showers.  Every so often the sun would pop out and then shortly after it would pour rain again.  In between showers I ran outside to fill the hummingbird feeders with fresh sugar water.  This was made a bit tricky by Gracie, our dog, trying to to drink it every time I set the container of it down.  I ended up balancing on a step stool half sinking in the soggy dirt reaching for the feeders with one hand and holding the sugar water in the other.  As much as I love our dog, she definitely makes simple jobs much more difficult when she's around.  But, it was worth the circus act because I was greeted with a beautiful male Anna's hummingbird drinking from the feeder this morning.  I've only been seeing females lately, so maybe his arrival means they are thinking about nesting soon.

First thing I did outside was check the winter sowing.  I've now got Verbascum, Hollyhock, Lupine, Foxglove, Flax, Canterbury Bells and Poppy 'Lauren's Grape' germinating.

This Pulmonaria has been way ahead of the rest so far, the others have lots of buds now though.

Hellebores under the Cedar tree.

Pansies in the window boxes.

The shed garden coming to life.  This will be the first spring in this garden and I've already found Hellebore seedlings here!  Lots of bulbs are coming up too.

One of my favorite parts of the shed garden.  Daffodils, tulips and Bluebells are all coming up.  I'm beginning to doubt the variegated rhododendron will ever bloom, good thing I bought it for it's foliage.

Mexican Orange (Choysia ternata) was one of the shrubs I moved when I put the path through the front garden.  Aside from constantly being blown over with all the wind we've had, it's looking really good.  I've got it staked up better now and hopefully the roots will have a chance to take hold.

I'm really hoping for some dry weather this weekend, we are planning to finish off most of the front garden project and moving soil in the rain just doesn't sound like fun.  I've looked at four different weather forecasts, and all four have different predictions for the weekend.  I'm going with the one that says "cloudy with a bit of rain".  I like that better than the one that says 70% chance of rain.
I hope you'll visit Glenda/Tootsie to see what she and other gardeners are sharing today for Fertilizer Friday.
All words and photos in this post are property of A Gardener in Progress.

Looking for some warmer weather...

 I know it's still winter, but I'm sure ready to see a little sign of spring from our weather.  It has been so cold lately.  We're used to the rain (although I'm tired of it right now), but it's the cold that's really getting old to me.  Our average high for this time of year is 51 degrees, we're barely getting above 40 right now.  I don't mind getting a little wet while I garden, but wet and cold is just no fun.  Between rain showers I decided to take a look around the garden and see how everything was looking since it snowed.  We spent so much time working in the front yard that I've hardly noticed anything else.
I found that the plants are trying to grow.  I think it'll take a couple of warm days and then there will be lots of new growth.  Peonies are sending up their bright red new growth, Clematises are all starting to leaf out and the buds on the pear trees are fattening up.

 Corsican Hellebore (Helleborus argutifolius) is just beginning to bloom.  It has flopped all over the ground it's gotten so big.

 I love how the leaves on this Saxifrage 'London Pride' look all wet.  This was given to me last year by Linda.

 Ribes sanguineum 'Kind Edward VII' has it's first flower bud showing!  This one was new to my garden last spring.  Last year at this time my other Ribes was already blooming.

 A few of the Snowdrops I planted last fall are blooming.  I expected them to be small, but are they really this teeny tiny?  From the ground to the top it's about 3 inches high.

 I moved Hellebore 'Red Lady' out front by a Hydrangea 'Preziosa' that I just moved during our front yard make over.  'Preziosa' still has leaf buds growing so I think it survived the move, now I hope it'll bloom.

 Tete-a-Tete Daffodils are so close to blooming, last year at this time they were in full bloom.

 The Crocus are closed up tight from the cold.

 And this pile in the shed keeps growing and growing just waiting to get planted.

 The garden is definitely behind from last year.  At this time last year I had Winter Hazel, Camellias,  the cherry tree, Muscari, Bleeding Hearts and several other plants blooming on March 1st.  I know they are getting close, they just need a little warmer weather, just like me!
All words and photos in this post are property of A Gardener in Progress.