Some new photos with the new camera!

This is summer number 5 in my house. I have to say it really wasn't until last year when I got things moving! So really all these photos are the efforts of two years, not five. I'm most proud of the back bank. When I moved in it was nothing but weeds, an abandoned spot in the yard. It was like the privious owners had no idea what to do with it...and neither did I.

You can see that the grass is growing pretty well in the picture above. This grass is part of my "turf relocation program". When I dug up the lawn for the sweet potato garden, and then later for the Japanese garden I saved all the turf and carefully placed it on the back bank. It took! It's a wonder since I tend to forget to water it, but this June it rained so much I think it greatly helped to establish the lawn there. Now I can mow parts of it and weed whack the rest. In 2007, it was so bad I had to take the weeds down with a machete! So that changed fast!

The paved area had been for a basketball hoop. I haven't really planned what to do with it yet.

Sweet potatoes take forever to grow. It didin't help that I planted them mid-June b/c Burpee would not send them earlier! There's just plant now, they blossom late in August or in September if I remember correctly from last year. Then they grow like crazy and cover the entire inside of the fence and adhere to the wire! Messy in the end!

New hydrangea up close and personal. It's very purple. I have it under the evergreen so it's likely to remain acidic.

Again, to think this was so bad I need a machete to clean it up! I'm so proud of my yard and the look it now has. It's really a santuary!