Green Thumbs and Purple Bruises

Well, I never said I was Martha Stewart, did I? And the differences between us are noticeable.

For one, I never spent any significant amount of time under house arrest. But more important to this post, even though I love to decorate and garden, I am definitely not perfect at it and I have no problem admitting it.

For instance, I get distracted with non-decorating and gardening things-- y'know, life and stuff-- and nature tends to get away from me. This is what happened recently. I've been plugging away in my spare time, writing my novel, and suddenly I discover obscure jungle tribes have moved into my backyard.

They're swinging from the vines. They're hiding in the shelter of growing thatches. They're making rude slings and taking out local wildlife for their din-din...


Okay, so maybe I exaggerate a tad... But not much.


Yup, that was my backyard earlier today. Lamb's Ear on the left deciding to discover it's Manifest Destiny and take over as much space as possible...

Mossy phlox having phloxed for distance...

Morning glories I planted seven years ago-- and removed (I thought) five years ago-- still making a play for turf and self expression...

Dead branches lying deadly... Plants which planted themselves in some personal quest to impose their taste on me waving hello...

Dandilions as big as, well, non-dandy lions...

Yes indeedy. Something had to be done!

So in an attempt to combine today's post-plus-chores, I took all of you with me on this quest for de-jungle-ification. Here, I seem to have upset an ant colony who felt my structural reorganization of their apartment complex was inappropriate. Much of what looks like dirt here are actually teeny ants!...


Regrettably, I think they may discover at the end of the day, during the course of weeding I might have actually bagged and disposed of their buddies George, Adam and Mildred...

But sometimes sacrifices must be made.

In happier news, I found that the climbing rose I'd planted a year or so ago-- a Ginger Syllabub-- is growing and is absolutely gorgeous...


I'm hoping to train this to grow over my arched trellis.

I also found that these Sweet Williams (at least, I believe that's what they are) have planted themselves...


I don't know where they came from originally-- I didn't plant them-- but they show up in some location in the yard every year...


I had planted the ancestors of this foxglove-- two different kinds-- but just where it decides to pop up each year is always a surprise to me....


I believe this is a Camelot foxglove. I like their bright pinkish purple spires, so I pretty much let them go wherever they want to be. If they show up somewhere strange in the yard, I just leave them. I figure it's better not to get too bossy with such a pretty, yet poisonous, plant! :)

I also found I had a rather nice Don Juan rose-- lovingly nicknamed "Johnny"-- here in the center of the yard...


Johnny's always quite the eye-catcher, with nice smelling flowers that are fairly disease-resistant.

I have two other red roses. One is this rose that was in my backyard when I bought the house. I didn't plant it, so I'm not sure of its name...


And then there's this climbing rose which only blooms once a year, but this year, it has been outdoing itself. Look at this nature-made nosegay of blooms!...


This... I don't know what it is. It's sort of furry-- and very bright pink...


With it blooming so happily, I couldn't pull it up. But it beats me what it might be. Maybe one of you wise folks here knows?...

So in the interest of Before and Afters... Here we have Before... The tangle of the jungle...


And here we have a shrubbery-trimmed, weeded and de-Tarzaned After shot...


I still need to trim back the rose bushes, put down new mulch, remove some dead topiaries and a million other things... but it's a start.

And I even have a soft Lamb's Ear bouquet to show for it!...


Time, I think, for a nice glass of ice cold tea!

• If you missed Wednesday's post of thrifted goodies, click here.

And otherwise, I hope to see you again this coming Wednesday when we talk about other thrifty finds! Have a good one!