Landscaping Notes
It seems the hyacinth is not dead after all. A distinctly hyacinth-like sprout showed up a while ago, next to the dry stalks from last year; it's plugging right along, and has now been joined by a second sprout. Yay, for I quite liked that flower.
Most of the balloon flowers have come back. A couple didn't; oh well, I needed to buy more anyway. And a bunch of other stuff to keep them company. The part of the mailbox bed that otterwort and I absolutely decimated last summer is still mostly weed-free; the part we just sort of thinned is knee-high in crab grass amongst the periwinkle. Sigh. I envision another scorched-earth mission.
I still have not begun tearing up the deck. I'd hoped to have that done before the end of the month; now it looks like I won't even get it started. Which means the woodchuck and chipmunks will get even more established under there while we're gone for the "we're old now" trip at the beginning of July. I will have to make the deck/door/siding/critter eviction my main July project.
The first thing I have to do is decide what to do with the shrub by the deck. It can't stay there; it'll be hugely in the way, and I've never liked it there anyway. It's a nice healthy plant, so I feel like I ought to transplant it, but it's not like there's an abundance of places on the property that don't already have their fill of plants. Anybody want an unspecified shrub?
There are several more of the same kind of bush in front of the LR side windows. Now, me, if I were planting shrubs by the house, I'd choose something that didn't grow more than a foot or two high, so it would naturally fit the space and not obscure the windows. The previous owners obviously subscribed to a very different philosophy. And of course I haven't trimmed them (the shrubs, not the previous owners), so they're completely out of control and blocking half the view. I don't really like them there, and have been meaning to remove them as well -- but, again, what to do with them? So (with resale and plant turn-around time in mind) I am considering just leaving them in place and cutting them back to where they should be. It'd mean taking them down to about half their current height, which is pretty drastic, but the rabbits chewed them down to mere stubs a couple of winters ago and they survived that just fine.
And then I need to clean up all the beds around the house, buy a metric buttload of edging, mulch, and pea gravel, and trim back the lilacs with extreme prejudice. Gawd. Perhaps my next house should have a gardener.