Irises Be Gone

Irises are one of my favorite flowers so I was pretty excited when our backyard bloomed purple during the first spring in our house. So for 2 weeks in late May, here's what the backyard looks like.

For the rest of the summer, our backyard is less purple and less pretty. The greenery has gotten progressively unruly during the last couple of years. On top of that, we learned the hard way these suckers don't take kindly to pruning. Ick, messy...

As much as I love irises, the unattended yard look was driving me mad,  so we cleared them out. In its place, we planted a few sprigs of salvia – as not to give up on the purple entirely. We'll add more ground cover next spring but for now we'll enjoy this clean, minamalist feel.

I'll still take irises in a vase anyday! 

Cha Cha Chia!

We are lucky to have a massive and healthy bleeding heart bush in our backyard, I adore the blooms on this plant and watching it grow is one of my favorite things about spring. I have to admit though, the growth is a bit freakish...it's kind of like a Chia Pet. I decided to take photos of it every so often this past month just to prove I'm not exaggerating.
See a series of photos here - "It's fun, water it and watch it grow!"

How Fast Does Our Garden Grow?

We just celebrated Andy's birthday last night and today it's snowing....this is SO wrong. So I'm hiding in the basement and using some serious skills of denial to remember/transport to our bright, green, sunny backyard:
They say that arborvitae are fast-growing plants - I needed to see just how fast, so I was sure to seize this Kodak moment with before and after photos. The summer season brought a good deal of progress to the backyard; the 'vitae established themselves and filled-out pretty nicely, I must say. Those with the thumb-of-green also say the second growing season is pretty intense. So I'm looking forward to some insane photosynthesis action next summer.
Revisit out backyard

Bring it on down to Arborvitaeville!

So I stopped whining about the backyard and we got to work. We cut a new, curvy bed along the fence to accommodate 12 arborvitae trees. These little guys are supposed to be fast growers and should form a nice, thick wall of green in a couple of years. Our arborvitae bonanza took 2 weekends to complete + a Riley record-breaking 5 visits to Home Depot in one day. We're quite pleased with the results - it's better than it was before.
Grow, baby, grow....can I feed them steroids?

Rant: The Neighbors are Killing Me!

Our backyard was a major selling point for us when we bought this house. It's a private, well-landscaped, little sanctuary - pretty unique for such a heavily populated area. Recently, however, the privacy element of our backyard was obliterated by a chainsaw. The neighbors to our right cut down their entire line of thick, wonderful, 8' tall hedges which formed a perfect barrier along the side of our yards. Even though they weren't mine, I loved those hedges.

Our little sanctuary has been sadly exposed - instead of lush greenery, our yard now offers a disgracefully clear view of unsightly backyards all the way to the Cambridge line. I keep asking (make that whining) "WHY?!"

The same weekend the hedges came down, the neighbors on the other side decided to extend their driveway into their backyard. Not pretty. Call me a Yankee - but overlooking a pickup truck while grilling? Ick. To add insult to injury, some lovely flowering tree branches were casualties of the endeavor. All in the same weekend? It made me nauseous.

As of now, the Riley sanctuary borders a horticultural refugee camp on one side and Kentucky on the other (see for yourself) and then of course, the basement flooding neighbor at 12 o'clock...but that was last summer's project. What will we do? Well, that brings us to our next project.
See our plans for the yard here + before and current pics