A hard working weekend

Sorry, I have no photos. I dropped my camera a few weeks ago, and the LCD screen broke so I have had to send it for repairs. The camera still functions, except for the display of course (I took the photos of the sodding "blind", and posted those photos last weekend). However, since you can't see what will be in your photo and you can't see what the control settings are, it was pretty difficult to use. Hopefully I will get the camera back soon.

But what about this weekend?

Freda and I worked very hard this weekend. Here is some of what we did:

• shopped around for some appropriate patio stones for the bottom of the stairs from the deck, we found something that fit the space almost perfectly at Home Depot.
  
• put together our home made composter - made with scraps of 2x4 and a short piece of chain link fencing that was in the garage.
  
• went to seed some packages of wildflowers that we had, only to discover that area we intended to seed had a healthy crop of thistles! It took me about 4 1/2 hours to fork them out. We spread them out for the sun to wilt them & kill them. I wonder if we can put them in the compost bin after that?
• planted "snow in summer" and another perennial (seed) on the top of the septic bed. Hopefully it will germinate and take over as ground cover there.
• created a few small flower beds in the back yard.
• we had planted peonies in our front flower bed, but we couldn't see any ants on them so their buds wouldn't open. Freda called a few nurseries and found that ants apparently do not like that setup, so we had to move the peonies, so we:
• discussed a location for the peony bed - decided to create a somewhat curvy shaped bed beside the driveway
• found and moved three big rocks to anchor the ends and the middle of the new peony bed
• mixed up a bunch of peat moss, black earth, and compost to create a nice soil for the peony bed
• pulled back all the rocks from the peonies, dug out the five peonies, and transplanted them in the new peony bed
• planted three new roses that we shopped for in three of the holes left in the front flower bed: Iceberg, Adelaide Hoodless (hardy Parkland series, but not as hardy as Explorer series), and Freda's favourite rose Morden Centennial (an explorer rose).
• planted two bee balm plants in the remaining two holes from the peonies.
• although it was threatening to rain (it never did) Freda decided to take the opportunity to dig out a rose that did not survive the winter and planed an aster that she transplanted from another flower bed.

So, all in all, a very hard working but productive weekend!