Monday, March 3, 2008

Extreme Makeover - Flower Bed Edition

Yesterday was a glorious day here in the South. (I will now say how sorry I am for those of my readers who happen to be in far colder climes.) It was something like 73 degrees here yesterday. So, Shooter and I decided to go out and work in the flower bed from hell. Yes, dear readers....I had a flower bed from hell. It has taken me 2+ years to work up the courage to tackle it. It had horrible shrubs in the front of the bed and a massive tangle of irises - little did I know what a jumbled mess they actually were. Once I got the shrubs out and pulled out most of the debris, dead leaves, pine needles and other assorted trash...this is what greeted me, much to my horror.



(Shooter actually pulled up part of this bulb, held it up and says, "Honey, what the heck is this thing?!?!?" I gasped and said, "Put down the iris bulb honey...I don't want to have to hurt you, but I will.")



We, as in Shooter, went to Lowe's and bought eight 40lb bags of top soil to fill in the bed. It was such a mess. We realized that one of our downspouts was eroding most of the dirt from the bed. So, we have an extender for the spout and a newly filled bed. Hopefully the bulbs are all nice and happy and cozy in their new bed of fresh dirt. I can't wait for them to bloom so that I can get good pics of them this year.


I was honestly very afraid at the thought of splitting up these happy families...but because they were so close to the surface, I'm pretty sure they'll not be as hard as I thought to get up/out/split as I had feared.

I'm so glad that Spring is here...kinda...well I say it's here...so it is. :-)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks like you guys did a ton of work. The thing about Iris's's's's is that at least a portion of the root should be exposed for them to bloom. Maybe when the topsoil has a chance settle, they'll be ok.

hayden said...

What the heck was that thing? Some kind of snake??? eeew, glad you survived! It was a beautiful day here, too bad I had to spend it at a 1 year old birthday party on a SUNDAY!!!!!!

Di said...

those bulbs look kinda creepy....like a worm gone wrong

for a different kind of girl said...

Cripes, at first glance I thought you were overrun by some kind of mutant snake, and I was going to suggest you perhaps move away rather than take photos!

I bet you'll have a beautiful flower garden when spring springs!

Anonymous said...

Good work on the flower bed. I thought we were in spring too, but now it's going to freeze tonight.