What now?

There are some nice surprises when you buy a neglected house and start to dig out the overgrowth. Peony shoots pushing up under piles of dead leaves and pine needles. Looking deep underneath the backyard trees, and seeing the buds of giant purple Star of Persia alliums.

On the other hand, there is the "hellstrip." The impossible to landscape strip between the street and the sidewalk that bakes and scorches all summer. Neighbors told us that one owner had hand-picked river rocks and placed them between ornamental ground cover along the whole strip, and carefully maintained it.

That was a long time ago. Now there is close to 80 feet of this.

"Roundup, Roundup, Roundup and repeat," one neighbor suggested. I think that purposely using Roundup is one of the things we will have to answer for in the afterlife. But after seeing the alternative, I will never judge another person for using it.

I got down on my hands and knees, and dug up every one of these rocks by hand.

In between, I looked on the computer and found great ideas for xeriscaping the hellstrip. I got inspired to divide and transplant some of the xeric plantings in the backyard, and create the first beautiful waterwise hellstrip in the neighborhood.

Then I thought about how quickly well-intentioned xeriscaping becomes scraggly late-August-highway-median in the hands of someone like me with no knowledge or money. And I balked. D. pointed out that there is probably a reason that even neighbors with nice yards have hellstrips with patches of browning grass, or boring stretches of tidy rocks.

So I think we are going to take out the weeds, level the dirt, lay down a weed barrier, and put rocks on top. Smaller rocks, with fewer gaps for weeds. We will still have to pull the occasional weed, but there will be no Roundup. And the beautiful river rocks can be saved for another day and another part of the yard.

Goodbye, Olde-Timey Wishing Well

There is a big hole on one side of our front yard. It looks like it was used as a fire pit by the eccentric gentlemen who lived here before we did. Last year, a girl rang our bell who said she used to live here. She cried when she saw the hole. She was just devastated that someone had torn down her mother's handmade decorative well. We felt bad for her and pretended like we were sorry too, that there's nothing we would have loved more than a nostalgic country wishing well in our front yard.

So we have to do something with that hole, and we decided to plant our new cherry tree in it. D dug out four square feet of rocks, leaves, slabs of slate, cigarette butts, and burnt charcoal from the hole, and could hardly stand upright the next day. But by yesterday he was ready to plant the tree. It's a Montmorency, a sour pie cherry that is supposed to thrive on the Front Range. I'd like to get a few more fruit trees, maybe another cherry and an apple or two.

R really likes her rake from the Easter Bunny. She wanted to take it to school today, but I talked her out of it.

It's a very small tree, but it looks like it might actually blossom this year. It should be pretty in front of the flowering crabapples.

And finally, today's lunch.