Surpise Gardening

Our front yard is, quite frankly, a disgrace. We bought our house in winter, so we pardoned the yard for looking dreary. We decided to wait and see what bloomed come spring and summer last year, because everything in North Carolina bursts into bloom eventually. 

Nothing bloomed except one staunch stand of  gladiolas. A variety of weeds sprung up. Dirty got washed away and we got to experience the power of erosion. Dear Husband was able to keep most of the grass mostly alive, but the large 'natural areas' that are nominally my arena were  and are terrible. 

That ugly, scraggly azalea is the only thing that should be there.

Of the green things, pretty much none of it is supposed to be there. 

I have bad luck when it comes to most plants. I killed a mint plant once. You can't kill mint with fire, but I did with my amazing plant-killing powers. 

But I thought I might be able to keep shrubs alive. They are already fairly sturdy when you buy them, so as long as I got ones that weren't too condition picky, I should be fine. I bought a few test shrubs a couple of weeks ago and they have been doing fine. Japanese privet is  perfectly happy in my strange clay-and-rotten-mulch soil.

Yes, clay, like the stuff you make pots out of in art class. 

A little cleaning and firing from a pinch pot. 

Dear Husband has deplored this state for some time, but knowing nothing about gardening, felt he couldn't really do anything about it. 

So while he was at a conference last night and today, I made a couple runs to the Home Dopey, as my dad calls it, or the Home Despot, as my husband calls it. The first run I got 6 japanese privet plants, and on the second run I got 6 more, plus a long handled digging spade, because short handled edging spades are not the tool to attack clay or roots with. 

Penny helped keep me company, and dig test holes for roots and rodents.

Yes, her entire head is underground in that photo. 

I planted 10 of the 12 plants (roots + rain stalled the last two). So now our front  yard looks like this

The plan is to have them grow into a nice hedge to line the driveway and help keep the erosion at bay. These will start the process, and if I like how it's going I'll continue it all along the driveway, which will take another 18 plants or so. The next step will be  to cover everything in a layer of pine needle hay, which will hide/kill the weeds and help the privets grow (fingers crossed). 

Dear Husband will be home from his conference soon, and I can't wait to see the look on his face.