As usual, this vacation has not gone quite as I imagined.

Normally I take this week off to do all the start of year garden stuff. But I got an early start on it this year, and thought I had so much done, that I wouldn’t need to do much in the garden at all.

But…

I still had to find a new place for those plants I bought recently. This little garden is the bare spot I filled last year and threw some grass seed on. The grass grew well last year, but come spring it was full of bare spots again. So I decided to just pull what remained out and turn it into a garden. This little patch now has the Sneezeweed I had to move from the catio (it got way too big for there), the new Columbine, Catchfly and Native plants I showed recently, as well as several coneflowers I bought last last year. There’s also a Delphinium, and Globe Thistle. In the bare spot in front of the Sneezeweed (in the corner), I planted a couple of bareroot peonies, and a bleeding heart. I may not see much of them until next year, but that’s okay.

I also gave all the new gardens a dressing of black mulch

That included the new front garden. I was also able to get some more solar lights exactly like the ones I have throughout the other front gardens. It looks much more finished now… and will only get better as the plants grow.

And I do love how the black mulch looks and makes all the plants pop, but it has a definite downside…

It does scrub off pretty easily, but it makes for a very messy job.

And as for painting the back porch…

It’s proved to be a much bigger job than I anticipated because of the way the porch is built. There aren’t a lot of big, smooth spaces, but there are a lot of nooks and crannies to try to get paint into. I’ve decided I’ll tackle it one section at a time. At the rate I’m going, I should have it painted by the end of the weekend. And then it’s going to need a second coat….

Still, I am enjoying watching all that red oxide disappear!