The Yard

This is how we found it.



Overgrown side yard. Volunteer maples in the oddest places. Brown scaling chain link fence. Trees and hedges and Virginia Creeper out of control.

So we started pruning.



Pat & Carl came to advise and help -- and what a difference! The Japanese maple and flowering crabapple are right in scale once again and flourishing. The robins and gold finches are loving the early summer berries.

Then we started digging.



Lots of weeds and Russian Sage (that looks an awful lot like a weed if you don't know it's Russian Sage). Found two forgotten climbing rose bushes and some raspberries. And replacements were warranted. A trip to the Planter's Palette (a must-see if you need plants in the West Suburbs) left us with a truck full of native perennials and a tree in the bed. Purple coneflower, lavender, bluestem grasses, beardstongue, another crabapple and more. These are hardy Illinois plants that can take the drought and the rains (and even the hail that had Pete running around in his PJs to "save the plants" early Sunday morning).

We've got two new rose bushes in the ground, as well as the crabapple -- looking pretty good so far. Hopefully more planting this week.

Oh yeah, and the fence came down.



At least the portion that was so nicely placed on the neighbor's side of the property line. Oops. That made a huge improvement (and our neighbors are pretty happy about it too).