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So in previous years I’ve been known to pull up anything green that comes up in my yard. Which would make you wonder why I bother planting wildflower seeds. I’m pretty sure I’ve pulled up every wildflower that’s sprouted in my yard.
But this year is different. If I don’t recognize it, and it doesn’t have tendrils or huge seed pods, it stays put.
Which leads us to this pretty flower. I thought at first it was just a dandelion. But the leaves are subtly different, and my patience was rewarded with this beautiful flower.
So what is it? Anyone know? 

No Camera

I left my phone at work so no pictures today. Boo.

I felled two small dead trees today and cleaned out my vegetable garden. Turns out it has become the neighborhood cat box, so I guess it’s good I have no plans for it this year.

Still on the to-do list. 3 more dead trees and shaping the boxwoods. Hopefully they’ll be able to handle the shaping. I feel bad for them because they almost died last year. At the same time I need to be able to get down my garden paths.

Some pictures of the backyard for a change. I’ve been doing Elder Care for my Grandmother, and I’ve been finding weeding especially therapeutic this year. I went back and did a bit more weeding after I took the pictures. Been doing a lot of weeding. I think I’ve gotten most of the bedstraw out now. 

Some pictures from cleaning up the lower garden. This is our front yard on the other side of the driveway. The pictures are from a week ago.

When we bought the house we didn’t actually know we had this lovely area. It wasn’t until we were enjoying our yard one of the first nights we moved in and wandering around that we noticed the steps and went down. There were vines strangling almost everything. When I trimmed down a nandina and pulled all the vines out of it I noticed there’s a lovely live oak on my neighbors property shading the area. I put the decomposed granite down there when we did the rest of the front yard, and it’s actually killed most of the vines since their root system was under the grassy patch in the middle and the visible parts coming up in the flower bed.
My work at making sure there’s not too much leafy buildup has really led to a increase in blooming irisis this year. But there used to be a ton of mondo grass that I let die in last years drought. I couldn’t justify using the water to keep it alive. Not sure what I’ll replace it with yet.

Loving the Rain

I planted a ton of Damianita, Black Foot Daises and transplanted a plant that I can no longer identify that spreads by runners into the backyard this past weekend. So I’m really excited about the rain and not having to heft a watering can around.

Then this morning when I left the house I was nearly knocked out by my yellow bearded irisis. I’ve been trying to rehabilitate the lower garden where they live and it appears to have paid off. A huge number of blooms this year. 

Today’s my no gardening day. Can’t wait until tomorrow. Hopefully some pictures. 

Man, still going with the weeding. It’s a pain, but the end is in sight. Hopefully by the end of next week. I decided that with the weather we’ve been having now would be an ok time to put in a tree, so I added the persimmon tree you see in the photo. I like it because it will provide berries and fruit.

So I figured I should update with where the yard is right now. I got my incentive check from the city and the go ahead to plant whenever I wanted. Apparently they’re not monitoring my lawn. 
I made the decision not to put down weed barrier in the main growing areas, because when planting new plants I tend to pull up the weed barrier and uproot old plants. But this lead to pretty much every sod clump I missed sprouting again. Julie gave me a lot of crap about this. So I’ve been weeding and adding more mulch. Hopefully that will tide me over until I get the plants in and they can start controlling the weeds. I’m about 5 hours into the weeding right now and I’ve only done one side. * sigh *
But the yellow bearded irises are blooming. So I’m happy. Irises are indeed fantastic shade plants. I’ve found you have to keep them from getting completely overwhelmed by leaves, but otherwise they grow really nicely and come back year after year. And they’re one of the few shade plants that doesn’t need supplementary watering. 
To make myself feel better about all my weeding I also planted 4 rose buses along the western wall of the hose, and put in 4 agaves. I needed a little carrot to keep going.

Nearly killed myself this weekend, but it is done. My Dad who is the real hero of this project was able to come over and help me both days. I had to go out for more edging. The granite seemed like it would never be done. And after dark (THANKS DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME), we managed to finish. So no photos day of. Then this morning I put the river rock in front of the retaining wall. And that’s it. Gotta submit to the city for my rebate and wait to plant. And cleanup a huge pile of granite.
I am so happy with how it turned out, and so is Julie. It definitely fits the design of the house in a way that an English garden would not.