The Not-So-Fun Part of Gardening

We all love pretty flowers & blooms in the Spring, don't we? But, along with enjoying those beautiful blooms comes the maintenance & upkeep. This is what happens when you wait until January to tackle all the leaves that fall from the trees. About a million leaves that need to be moved out of the beds & grass into the back area of the yard.
This fun chore is what we are up to this week, as the weather is in the 70's. Perfect for working outside in the yard. Peter is raking, blowing & hauling leaves on the tarp.
And I'm talking to Mia, the other neighbor's dog next door to us. We are surrounded by dogs. Mia always comes over to the fence when I'm out working in the yard.
Now, just in case you think everything about our house is beautiful....let me assure you it is most definitely NOT! Welcome to the mudpit. This will be a before pic & come spring, Lord willing, it will be a different story. I've wanted to work on this eyesore for 2 years now, so this is the year. This is underneath our deck & it's high enough to walk under, so could definitely work as a patio of sorts. Right now it's a mud magnet. All the water that falls through the deck ends up under here. You can see our wonderful Southern red clay. It's hard as a rock. And when I turn on the hose that is under here, water gets everywhere.
See my pretty black swing. It's hard to get inspired looking at what's under the deck. My plans are to put a pretty paver & pea gravel patio under here. I've seen it done & it's really nice looking & should be economical to do too. I don't really care about having it really fancy, since we would most likely use the deck more when it gets screened in eventually, but this will get rid of the mud & be a nice place to enjoy some shade. I need to find some inspiration pics to get a plan started. I would love to add a winding flagstone walkway over to our side gate too. So hopefully that is what I'll be working on in the next few months.

That's a project for another day. In the meantime, I'm faced with this.....
And this...lots of leaves, weeds, & overgrowth. I'm hacking away & hopefully this bed will come alive again in the spring with all the perennials I planted in here 2 years ago. If you're new to visiting me, go & take a look at my garden last April. This is what it is going to look like again. I get inspired just looking at those pics right now, as it's hard to believe the difference. I sometimes forget the miracle of Spring that happens right under my nose every single year.
I really cut back the purple verbena this time. For some strange reason, it thinks that this bed is for it alone, so it's time to beat it into submission. You can see with our mild weather so far, it hasn't even died back. There's lots of green growth underneath.
So this is all the overgrowth I cut off of it. Now it can get new growth again & not overtake the bed come spring. This is one fellow who has to be kept under control or it will take over completely. I am hoping & praying we don't have such a severe drought this year. Last year was probably one of the worst in recorded history & time will tell how many trees we will all lose around here. We know one of our big oaks in the back is dead. Many plants & trees are in drought shock, so we will see when Spring arrives what survived & what did not. It's not looking good again this year, from what we have heard, so I will probably not be planting a lot of new things this year. A hardscape project will be in order though.
Can you tell I'm really looking forward to wearing these more often these days. It's nice to have time to do this again, in the daytime, with warm winter weather around right now. And oh, I'll be looking forward to Spring again. How about you?!