Gardening, it does a body good...maybe...

Sunday was a beautiful day here in Atlanta. It was sunny and warm with enough breeze to cool a sweaty brow. In other words a gorgeous day for playing in the dirt. And boy oh boy...did I play!! Well, I really only meant to go out and dig a few holes and plant a few plants and weed out a few pesky weeds...but no...my garden had other plans for me.

I was ready to dig my first hole...after spending a while weeding the bed, I had selected the perfect spots for my foxgloves. I put the shovel down and put some weight behind my foot and shoved....nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Nothing! No movement into the soil at all!! I thought, what on earth could be the problem here. I got down on my knees and started feeling around for a rock or something. What I uncovered was a bunch of roots so tightly packed that I couldn't get my shovel through to plant my flower.

This discovery led to an approximate 40 min session of playing tug of war with Boxwood Shrub roots. Good lord, I HATE shrubs. With a passion...hate them. They're of no value to me. What did happen, though, is that the dirt got really turned up so that I didn't have to shovel too hard to get holes for my lovelies!

I thought I'd share photos of my perennial bed...with a few annuals thrown in for color. ;-)



Here are my two "baby" hostas. My Mom gave me these as just we cuttings back two years ago. Can you believe how they've grown? They go off to Harvard next year...I'll be so sad.

Here's the "Momma" hosta. She started out as small as the babies, but apparently she loves that darker corner of the bed. It is quite shady there and it stays cool and pretty moist back there. Apparently she's loving life...she's promised not to abandon me once the kiddos go off to school.

In the background are my Black-Eyed Susans. In the foreground are some Evening Primroses. These also came as small little split offs from my Mom's plants. They were so small and fragile and sad when I got them...now look at those guys! They're growing like crazy. The Evening Primroses will have to get split after this season - I have another patch (below) that's equally as big. These Black-Eyed Susans will have to get split up as well.

My other patch of Evening Primoses...as you can see those buggers are getting ready to bloom out all over!

Here's an over view of the garden. The Monkey Grass in the front will need to get split after this season too. It's amazing to me how this bed is taking shape. In a couple of years it will be so full and gorgeous.

I planted about 4 different kinds of daylillies, foxgloves, a mounding periennial of some sort, and another purple periennial. ha...I'm such a great gardener aren't I! I should have kept those darned tags from the nursery!

Now...for my Iris bed....ah...my dearest Irises....I adore this time of year!

I have a few of these bi-color Irises that are blooming.

These make up the biggest part of my Iris bed. I love their dark reddish purple color!

You can see my lone white Iris in the background...it's my only one so far!

I am feeling a bit better today. I have been trying to get in to see my doctor for well over a week and finally was able to wriggle my way into a spot that opened up this afternoon. I am hoping that I can get my meds all worked out and get back to feeling "normal" again.

The gardening this weekend helped. I was able to focus on something else and walk away with a real sense of accomplishment. Right now I do better when I can have some kind of concrete results to show for my work.

Hope you all have a great Tuesday!