In the Beginning

I never knew I had such a large garden.  Neither did my friend, Kim.  Weeds do that.  They cover up the space in lumps and curls.  In the "front garden" (called this, because it's located by the front door of my home), there are two sections.  The large section and the small section.  The below picture is the small section.

These are thick weeds, though it might not appear that way from this picture.  See that little splash of color in the middle?  That's a morning glory bloom.

The large section is about 4 times the size of the small section.... I have no pictures of the large section.  I was too embarrassed to even take a picture of the "before" reality.  But I did find this picture.  Cute, isn't it?  The cat in the window next to the stained glass art that I made...

I had to walk among the weeds to get this picture inside the large section of the front garden.  See that huge greenery on the left side?  That's a WEED.  Uh Huh.  A healthy huge weed... one of the many.

I have a juniper tree in the large section.  It's a very old tree, very tall for a juniper.  There was a weed, a  nasty, clinging, smothering weed/vine growing from the base of the juniper.... through the juniper... reaching all the way to the top and beyond the juniper!  I nicknamed it the "bean stalk"... seriously, it was massive.  Embarrassing....

Anyway... I bought some soft gardening gloves from the dollar store and found a small garden shovel.  Being unemployed meant there was time to work the garden, even if it was daunting.  My husband told my Mom that he didn't think I would finish it.  And yes, he meant what he said.

After working 30 minutes one morning in the small section of the front garden, I secretly wondered if my husband wasn't right.  30 minutes and the only thing showing is the little bitty area weeded on the top of the picture... can you even see it?

I was proud of that little unweeded part and close to giving up too.  I was hot and irritated and filthy.  Breathing in dirt and weeds didn't help the sinuses either.  It took me a week and a half to finish weeding out the rest of it.

When I looked at the larger section, I called my friend, Kim and begged for help.  She came over during the weekend and it took two of us working all day, using a large shovel and clippers and four outside garbage cans filled, but it was done.

Then the fun began.

We turned the soil in both areas, meaning we took the shovel and literally turned the dirt.  Kim said this was important for the roots of the new flowers... loose soil was easier to root into rather than packed dirt.

Then we spread out 20 bags of top soil.  Man oh Man... when you garden, you use muscles!  Do you know how much a bag of soil weighs?  A Lot.

The best part was figuring out where the new plants would go.  Truly, the fun part :)  I needed Kim's help for this too.  Kim and Sue gave me plants from their garden.  Where their plants were too populated, they dug up the extras and gave them to me.  This was a great help in starting a garden without the expense.

Only thing is.... I had no clue what the plants were, if they bloomed or not, or what type of sunlight they needed or how tall they would get.  Kim had to be there to help me sort through the plants and she knew their characteristics, so as to better organize the garden.

It took a while to plant all of them, even though the plants are small... it's a lot of them.  Then we spread out 25 bags of mulch and put in a perimeter around the garden so the dog wouldn't go there.

To anyone looking at weeds and starting the project, don't give up.  It's so worth it!  Get some music and work in the early morning or late afternoon when it's cooler.  Bring some water and enjoy.  Even weeding can be relaxing when you know what the end result will bring :)