An Actual Post About Gardening!

The origins of this blog's title are explained in the column to the left, but the short version is that it has nothing to do with gardening--until today! Jeff has been set on getting our front garden blooming (if we're honest, we're partially motivated by the super-gardeners who live around us and show us up), and he's finally really gotten things going!

Here's what we started with when we moved in (which is the way we left it for the first year and a half):

At the outset, the long strip of garden-able space pretty much served the purpose that it's serving in this photo; it was full of red lava rocks, and the neighborhood kids loved filling their trucks with the rocks and displacing them around the front yards nearby. That is, until the day that Jeff decided the rocks had to go. He spent many painstaking hours (a paltry few of which included my help and the "help" of the neighborhood kids) removing the rocks to reveal the dirt below. The good news (according to Jeff) was that we had a lot of worms, so that meant the soil might be richer than we expected.

Our first trip to the nursery was small; we just wanted to tackle the square area surrounding the lamppost at the front of the walk. Having completed several hours of research--and knowing my love of lavender--Jeff settled on a modest landscaping design.

With just a few lantana flowers and lavender plants, it already looked worlds better--and Jeff was rightfully proud of his accomplishment! We truly started to reap the rewards when the purple lavender buds began to blossom, and I got in the habit of running my hands through the soft flowers each night as I came home. Within a few weeks, Jeff was ready to continue his hard work.

When we started last night, the garden looked like this:

After several hours of Jeff's hard work and sweat (I did pull up all the grass that had grown in, so I wasn't totally useless)...

We actually had a full, diverse garden!

I'm in love with the whole thing--with Jeff's hard work, with the beautiful flowers and plants we've chosen, and with the fact that we've put our own stamp on the front of our home. Inch by inch, we've grown a garden of our own!