It's starting to come together

I think there are few things better than an insanely productive spring weekend. As I mentioned on Friday, this was a weekend for me to just kick it in the garden. And kick it I did.

I got up and out there early both days and just kept pushing it. I got the largest garden (the "original" one off the patio) weeded and top-dressed with compost, did a bit of edging, planted oodles of plants and patched about a billion holes in our pathetic lawn.

I'm happy with how the terraced garden off the deck is coming in its "leap" year. The fringe tree in the center is just starting to show leaf buds so it's a bit sad looking right now. I'm very happy with how the Orangeola Japanese maple on the left is doing. I think it must be 7 or 8 years old now.

The "meatball" boxwood in the corner of the garden has really grown but I'm waiting for several more weeks before I prune it back into shape so that all the new growth has a chance to flush out. It half swallowed a large rock we had there so we levered the rock over a bit and added another smaller stone we had kicking around the garden. I also put in a few plants for a mini rock garden. Although this over-exposed picture was taken Sunday evening and is a bit glary, I'm really happy with how that corner looks. Sometimes I think it's best to break garden beds into their own areas and plant "mini-rooms." 

I love this new basil I planted by the tomatoes. It's called 'Crimson King' and it looks just like a regular sweet basil but it has this great color, which is supposed to stay throughout rather than turning green like some purple basils. Do you see all that powder on the leaves? That is all some of the crazy amounts of tree pollen that have been blowing all over the place for the last week. Our deck is actually yellow most mornings with pollen.

I also whipped up some homemade deer repellent, which is on the patio cooking in the sun to get extra funky. The funkier the better when it comes to repelling deer and bunnies.

And after all that hard work in the garden, I snapped this photo of maybe my most favorite part of our property: The American beech trees. No matter how much we do, Mother Nature always seems to do it better, doesn't she?