That's good, Kat--shutter clutter. :)

I dug a flower bed this afternoon. My aching body will attest to this. Before the new roof last fall every time it rained there was the granular stuff from the old roof landing in a few drainage areas. This new bed is away from that, so tomorrow I will dig up and transplant a bunch of cannas from one of the tar areas. I may have to start by carefully scraping up several inches of granular stuff first.

The foundation soaker hose is the occasion for this new bed. Since I water it during the summer I might as well have some beds all of the way around. That side of the house is plain brick with grass and a heat pump. I don't want hedges, I'll put various height annuals. These cannas are a good start. My neighbor tells me she had good luck with asperagus out in that area of her yard (until her husband dug it up because he was afraid it would hurt his foundation. Asperagus hurt a foundation! I think what might have hurt was the frying pan on his head!)

I have a lot of yard rearranging to do, and another thing I think I need to dejunk out there is one of the silverado sages. It was supposed to be a dwarf, but I have to keep pruning it back below five feet. It is lovely when it blooms out lavendar, but it didn't live up (down!) to the tag that said it was dwarf. Or if this is a dwarf, the regulars must be trees!

It's good to see that others are reading through and being inspired by this activity. My daughter took a microwave up to school today and a box of felt I bought for her at a garage sale. For all of this work, the living room and dining room are still very cluttered as I bring it forward from the rest of the house. I have a long way to go!

SRS