Oh My What a Day

February 1 was a spectacular day.  It got to the mid 60s, almost a record but not quite.  But what a spring-like day.  I spent the afternoon outside moving rocks, planning things, sitting and just looking at everything.  It all looks so good.

Although everything is muddy and brown and gray looking from inside, and the sky was intermittently cloudy, it all sparkled while I was outdoors.  The hollies shone, the mud was a warm rich color, the bare branches of the shrubs looked so artistic.  The Angelina sedum is a rich rust and gold color all along the walkways.

Wow, it just felt so very good to be out there and to be doing projects.  Here's what I did:

I moved rocks.  I brought the ones from Meadow's Edge into the gravel garden, but even though they were almost too heavy to move, they still look puny.  I need some much larger boulders along the edges of the gravel. 

Here's how Jane's looks, and that is what I'm going for.

See how there is an island of rocks jutting into the gravel space?  And how much bigger the rocks are than my few?

I took out the moss garden in the iron birdbath and laid the moss pieces on the scatterings of small rocks in the gravel garden.  Think I'll get a nice mossy look on the stones eventually?

I cut down a tree. The three junipers I had planted at the road cut to screen the street have grown quite large now.  One looked funny, and when I went out there I could see the October snowstorm had uprooted it and it was completely leaning against another.  I had to cut it off at the stem, and drag the corpse to the edge of the woods.

The three junipers when first planted.  The middle one is gone now.

The remaining two are big now and will fill in the gap in the middle, so it will be ok.

Shade dapples the strawberry jars and juniper.

I made plans.  The front garden is going to have containers.  I don't know why, but the two strawberry jars, without any plants in them, make me happy here.  Nice muted monotone colors with the terra cotta and the rustic looking juniper.

The nandina has to go. Ick.  The irises (where the strawberry pots are) have to go, and I will move the big gauras and put in the bun falsecypresses (three of them).  

And a big white flowered clematis for the trellis ('Henryii will replace Bluebird).  Without the billowy gaura and the ungainly irises, this strip will be neater, more in keeping with a front walk.  And the pots add mass and structure.

And then I want to add another terracotta urn, larger, to the right side.  Pottery Barn has a nice bulky oil jar in terracotta stone and resin.

The pot I want to add (Pottery Barn, $179)

I like it.

And there's more.  I want to put a wooden arched bridge across the dry creek bed.  I moved the flat stepping stone to the gravel garden (looks too small as all the stones there do, sigh).  The bridge will go across where the stone was.  Four feet I think.  I saw one at Lee May's and I can get a similar one on Amazon.

I ordered one like this, a 4' span from Amazon.  $259.

It just felt so wonderful being outside puttering and making plans, I can't express it. Moving rocks was tiring, and I came inside in late afternoon, dirty at the knees and feeling good.