Thursday, May 24, 2007

Before and after
















Other than the front porch, a few things are different. The leaves on the crabapple tree are no longer wilted and curled; it looks like we finally got rid of the apple scab that caused the leaves to wither and die off after the tree blossomed.

You can see a lot of the plants that we put in last year starting to come up. I wish I'd taken a photo a few weeks ago when all the daffodils were out. It was beautiful. The spice bush just left of the porch is filling in nicely, and the pagoda dogwood at the far left of the picture is doing well too. MizBubs can actually remember the names of all these plants, so if you got questions you're better off asking her. And, while the lawn may be patchy, it's not totally overrun with creeping charlie and dandelions like it was last year. It's all a work in progress.

10 comments:

Splotchy said...

Bee-yeutiful!

Barbara Bruederlin said...

Good job! Your place is lovely!

Mob said...

Nice work! I'm very impressed.

Joe said...

Thanks everyone!

MizBubs found a nursery that specializes in native Illinois plants, and we've started putting those in over the past two years, and it's finally starting to look like something. Everything we've planted is low-maintenance and drought resistant. We've also made efforts to shrink the size of our lawn, since a lush green lawn is not very resource-friendly.

We have a square foot garden on the side of the house, and a small herb garden nearby. I'll put some pics of that up once the harvest starts coming in.

Tenacious S said...

Come see my lawn. You'll love yours even more!

Coaster Punchman said...

Yes, nice. Living in a Brooklyn brownstone, we have a cement slab with potted plants. I've been trying to convince Poor George to spend some of our money on sprucing it up for some more curb appeal. So far he's not on board. Maybe you should have a talk with him.

Dino said...

very nice now you can come down here and get mine straight ;)

kim said...

Creepin' Charlie is the worst.

Worst than poison ivy.

Katie Schwartz said...

beautiful, warm and inviting.

Joe said...

JG, thank you! It helps that I wasn't flying my Gadsden "Don't Tread On Me" flag when I took this picture.

Kim, you know creeping charlie!? I hate that stuff. My neighbor's yard is crawling with it, so I have to constantly fight it coming under the fence. It's amazingly hardy stuff.

Katy, I'll work for beer.

CP, we'll ply him with his favorite likker first. Seriously, I find my attitude is helped so much by having something colorful and green around. I'm not big on houseplants, but I love having stuff around my house.