Tiny Dancers in the Lawn

10

April 20, 2014 – I’ve been negligent on working on my 2014 scavenger hunt (114 Photographs in 2014) but at least managed to catch the one that had to be done on April 14th, although I didn’t get it off the camera until today. Things have been so crazy busy that I just haven’t managed to remember to pick up the camera and take some time to work on my photography more. I did so well for so many years, and then it just trailed off.

14. All the Fours ~ 14th April 2014 (any photo taken on the day)

Since we moved into the new place before Christmas we have mostly just enjoyed the new digs. But a couple of weeks ago things changed, radically.

We started to work on it.

In a big way.

The kitchen has been gutted, right back to the studs. The ceiling is gone, the flooring is gone, the walls are gone (mostly). Two days of jackhammering were involved to bring plumbing to a new location as the sink will be moved to an island instead of against the wall. Gas is being plumbed to the wall since we are getting rid of the electric range and putting in a gas range/oven.

While all of that has been going on inside, I’ve been attacking the yard. It’s a bigger space than I ever thought I’d end up with, but I’m game. I’d originally thought I’d get someone in to design and re-landscape it. But then the cost of the kitchen ended up looking like it will be much more than we’d originally thought, so something had to give, and that would be the yard. It will be a do-it-yourselfer. For the most part anyway.

In the past week I have moved about 500 lbs of gravel from offending locations to ones that are less so. I have also taken out a dozen or so mixed pavers that were plunked down across parts of the yard and which were a terrible mix of square, rectangular, and round concrete. There are still about 50 more to tear up. I’ve pulled out and moved 5 (very large) boxwoods. I’ve planted 3 rhubarb plants, 14 azaleas, 3 sweetbox bushes, 1 huge calla lily, about 25 hostas, 2 bloodroot plants, a pink viburnum, and a laurel, 3 rosemary, 2 garlic chives, 2 normal chives, 4 thymes, 2 sages, 1 marjoram, 3 kinds of mint, a (very large) magnolia tree, 2 lilyturfs, 3 flowering quinces, 3 European gingers, 3 fawn lilies, 3 shooting stars, 7 sweet woodruffs, 6 mondo grasses, 2 black mondo grasses, 2 hardy orchids, 3 toad lilies, 5 saxifrages, 5 pulmonarias, 5 rhodohypoxis plants, 2 siberian irises, 1 blue eyed grass, 5 violas, 1 wisteria, 1 pampas grass (that one fought back!), and a small laurel.

And I still have 3 small junipers and 3 yuccas waiting for me to move some gravel and find them a home out near the curb.

And the yard STILL looks empty?

I don’t know what to do with all this space!

The lawn can’t really be called a lawn. In some places it’s a bit of a swamp, in others it’s a muddy mess. There is more moss than grass, and at the front there is a large swath of sand and gravel where the hole the oil tank came out of was filled. I’ve taken out two garbage pails of dandelions, the holes all those removals left pose a serious threat to one’s ankles, and there are more still cropping up.

But there are some fun things growing in the lawn too.

There are violas popping up in a few places, and there is a ton of some tiny creeping plant that puts out a multitude of these tiny little blueish-purple flowers, each only 4-5mm across.

Presumably it’s considered a weed, but it’s very pretty and since I really don’t particularly like lawns that much, it doesn’t offend me.

(Update: A quick online search turned up what the plant is. It’s called Slender Speedwell (Veronica filiformis), and yes, it’s considered an aggressive weed. But since I don’t like the current lawn anyway, it pleases me more than the grass does)