#39 - Done!

Starting at the beginning of February, I invoked a new personal and business related rule: I am taking Sundays off. No checking email, no going on appointments, no answering the phone. Sure, there will be an exception from time to time, but as a rule, Sundays are my day off. And man have I been enjoying them.

In fact, just a couple Sundays ago, I decided to use my whole day off to check another item off of my 101 in 1001 list: Plant flowers in the front yard.

As they say, the first step to solving a problem is admitting you have one, so bear that in mind as I share the next couple of photos with you.

Here is a shot of the little patch of gardening area by my front door:

Ah, but look closer and you will see why this made the list in the first place.

You can see the attempt for beauty was there in the past, what with the small trellis and brick border, but that was from days gone by when I had MORE than one day off a week... and one less child for that matter. (Ok, brace yourself...)

Eeek. Not pretty. But I knew just the place to go to rectify this situation. My friendly neighborhood Home Depot. Look at this marketing quality photo below, complete with employee hard at work.

I am such a flower person, so I just love the garden center. Just look at what my eyes beheld:

But I was a woman on a mission. So, I carefully made my selections, packed up my car and headed home.

To begin, I dug out all of those ugly weeds and added some fresh soil.

Next, I dug a couple of holes for my climbing roses and added a much more substantial trellis.

Meanwhile, while I was working on the roses, my husband Brian was digging up the main drip line for me. You see, the reason that my little patch of garden has never quite been successful, is because it doesn't have a drip line running to it.

For the 9 years we have been in our house, I never realized that the little plastic channel in the crack of the sidewalk, was in fact there for that purpose. Der! And what a simple solution.

I purchased a little kit with all kinds of little connector do-dads and Brian ran a line from the main drip system, through the plastic channel and into my garden bed. Voila!


Once we laid the drip line throughout the patch, I began to add my flowers. I selected a variety of Marigolds, Snapdragons and Alyssum. Here is how it turned out:

So, what do you think? I am so happy with it. Not to mention I got one more thing checked off the list... What a beautiful Sunday that was!