New and Improved!

Well, we finally moved into the new houswe about four days ago. Yesterday and today I had a local company here, Arbors & More, pulling out the old rotten fence on the right hand side of the back yard and installing new. It looks great, I am so happy with it! And my neighbor shared the cost with me. I had them turn the sections that face her house so that she gets to see the pretty side. It's only fair!

My lovely new fence. If you look at the pictures on my previous post, you can see the old fence.

Here's a close-up.

The same company also redid our front step. There was an area to the right of the front door that had been filled in with just concrete blocks and river rock. Now there is a concrete pad that matches the front step. In fact, it looks like it has always been there. I could put a chair there, or some potted plants.

Before:

After:

I Added a Gadget

Blogger has created a way for blog followers (not that I have any, but maybe some day) to donate money to charities. Just click on the American Red Cross window on the right hand side of the page. You don't have to donate any money, just clicking on it is enough. Like those pages online that allow you to donate to breast cancer research, etc. just by clicking on a button.

Anyway, I chose the American Red Cross because I think they do great work and are a worthy charity. I hope you think so too.

First Things

The first thing I did with the new garden was take pictures of the shrubs to try to identify them. I think I have now got IDs on all the shrubs in the foundation bed.

 On the far left is Escallonia, which should have pink flowers in the spring. The shrub on the right is Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Blue Feathers'.

In this picture,  on the left is a tiny prostrate shrub called Euonymus fortunei 'Emerald Gaiety,' next is a Helianthemum nummularia which flowers pink, and in back of those two is a dwarf blue spruce and another Euonymus fortunei called 'Monce.' At the far back, and very overgrown, is a low-growing Cotoneaster.

The bed needed a good weeding, it was overrun with ornamental strawberries. I also gave the bed a trench edging, to try to keep weeds from the grass from traveling into the bed. At the same time I pruned the Helianthemum and the Escallonia, as well as the Cotoneaster, to get the branches away from the siding on the house.

Some time this fall, I'd like to remove the large Euonymus, and the Cotoneaster. I'd like to replace the Cotoneaster with a Weigela 'Wine & Roses' and the Euonymus with a Forsythia 'Fiesta.' I'd also like to add a Hibiscus x 'Fireball' to the bed, and move the small Euonymus to a different spot. Oh, I also want to take the dwarf spruce out completely, it will undoubtedly get too big very quickly for the spot it's in, so close to the house. I think a Berberis 'Helmond Pillar' will look much better there. One thing all the new shrubs offer is interesting foliage colors, the Berberis and Weigela have reddish foliage, and the Forsythia is variegated green and yellow.

Getting Started

Well, enough procrastination. This blog is really just for me, to keep a record of my new garden at our new house in Washington state. We passed papers a couple of weeks ago. Here's our new house.

I have all kinds of ideas for what I want to do with the back yard. It's going to need some work. There is one area that is overgrown with blackberries and other weeds, and the previous owners left behind a swing set that has been cemented into the ground. They also used landscape fabric -- Aarrgghh! I'm going to have to tear all that out. It doesn't really work at suppressing weeds, and it prevents compost from doing its thing. And I love compost!

Here's the back yard, from right to left.