TA DA! Happy Birthday, House!

All finished and mulched and even a little patch of hostas planted. As I was trying to plant them I realized that there's a thick mat of grass under all that mulch. I had to dig a huge area to be sure I got all the grass and roots out before I put the hostas in. 

I know it looks too sunny for hostas, but as soon as all the leaves come out on those walnut trees (which I hate, by the way. They drip black gunk onto my car, causing me to have to park on the other side of the driveway from late summer until the leaves fall off in autumn.) it's shady all day long.

And to remind you what this area looked like before:

Quite an improvement, right? It's also cool to see how green things have gotten! The "before" picture was taken on March 23 - six weeks ago.

Next month I will have lived in this house for ten years, so I decided that this addition is my home's birthday present. When the house was built and I moved in, the trees were much smaller and the property looked like the overgrown pasture that it is. Now, it looks and feels like a forest, which thrills me to no end. Except for the walnut trees, which I have too many of. (I know - "of which I have too many" sounds pretentious to me.) They're really not good landscape trees. Besides the tannin dripping from the leaves, most of them have been wind damaged over the years. I have 5 of them that the tops broke off of in a bad thunder storm last fall. The squirrels love them, though! I have one small maple that was planted the year I moved in (you can see in these photos) and the rest of the trees are ash and cherry.  

So, now it's on to other garden chores for awhile. I'll plant some vegetables in my raised bed and annual flowers to fill in places and to have cutting flowers for the house all summer. Ahhh! I love getting my hands in the dirt!