Landscape

Well, anyone who has been over here over the last month or two has no doubt seen the 4-foot high weeds in those beds in front of our porch.  It was AWFUL!   So the other day I called Joyce, the woman who does such an amazing job cleaning for us, and asked if she knew anyone who did flower beds.  She said she would check around.  But then she called back last Thursday and said she would come work on it on Saturday and come back another day if she didn't get it done.  I told her that would be great and I really appreciated it, but in fact I couldn't really imagine that such a little bitty woman could get rid of all those weeds in even a couple of days. 

Ha!  I should have known that if she can excavate our house and get IT cleaned up in one day those flower beds wouldn't be that much of a challenge for her. 

Check out the size of those piles of weeds, would you!  And you can't even see them all in these pictures.

The only thing she didn't do was get rid of that bush/tree thing on the left above and on the far end of the porch below.  I forget what it's called, but it's some awful thing that when you cut it back to the ground it just comes back up in ten different places.  We went by a local nursery and got some stuff they said to paint on the cut stalks after we cut it down and it would definately kill it.  I hope they're right.

Joyce even weeded under the porch where all those vines and things had grown up as well.  The woman is amazing.  I'm going to go up to a nursery in Walker tomorrow and pick up some Encore Azaleas -- the kind that blooms all summer long -- for that bare area in front of the Artesia.  Since we lost all those trees in the front in Gustaf, the Artesia and ferns are NOT happy.  Planting 4-foot high azaleas should provide enough shade for them again.  And Mark has been wanting azaleas ever since we moved in.  The woman I talked to at that nursery - Pineywoods Nursery - said she would drive up to the distributor today and pick up the colors I wanted.  I told her I wasn't positive which ones I wanted, and she said "Don't worry about it.  I'll get ten of each and if you don't buy them someone else will."  Great!  So I'm going to take a half day off work tomorrow, go pick up Janet, and we're going to head over there and get the azaleas and some sort of mulch.  I'm thinking I'll use that stuff made of rubber that doesn't disintegrate for a long time.  Janet is going along because they have FINALLY accepted an offer on their old house in Hammond so she's thinking of finally going ahead with the landscaping on the front of their new house.

Hmm.  Looking at these pictures, it looks like that wicker furniture could use a fresh coat of paint, too.  One thing always leads to another, doesn't it?