The "Lasagna" Garden

Beautiful day again. So thankful for this spring weather.  The morning was quiet and relaxing. I did venture outside to look over "lasagna" garden.   Actually it's the far side of our back yard just past our blueberry bushes.  Let me go back and tell this story.  Four years ago before Meme (Paul's mother) died we realized she was going down and we would need to sell the house soon.  I mentioned to Paul that the front shrubs were way over grown and fresh landscaping would be a good selling point. Paul asked me to work up a landscape plan. I did, but it involved removing lots of roof high shrubs; boxwood, red tip photinia, and lovely pink azaleas. Paul tried digging them up with a shovel but the roots were so deep and huge. The only thing to do was to put a rope around the trunk and use the truck to rip them out of the ground. And he did over and over on all the shrubs EXCEPT the azaleas. Those I had plans for at our house.  When it was time to go home only the azaleas were left. Paul went back later that week and I instructed him how to trim them back and then dig them up, put them in individual black garbage bags   Unfortunately we didn't get to finish the yard work because Meme passed away. I hated the yard was a mess when all the family came for the funeral. The next week Paul and his brothers in law planted the new shrubs and put out fresh pine straw. He brought the 10 azaleas home and we planted  them down the side of our yard near the pine trees.   We have lost a few of them but most are hanging in there. Last year my garden club had a speaker talk about Lasagna gardening  which is basically laying down layers of newspaper and then layering green and brown matter to compost. Some areas worked great other areas need weeding often. (And maybe more newspapers under the pine straw). We have added a purple magnolia, 2 pink dogwoods and 2 wisteria.  We also added 2 trellis for the wisteria, a bottle tree, 10 large stepping stones from the old patio and a bird house.  The bottle tree was Meme's, she asked for it as a Christmas gift so we put it near the azaleas.  Before we put in the pool 2 years ago Paul had the pines removed. Some were diseased and dying. In the Springtime this area looks so pretty.  I love this sweet section of our yard. I found several patches of wild Violet's

and some wild strawberry plants yesterday.

Also a bird is nesting in the birdhouse I bought at Canton Flea Market last spring.
So I pulled some weeds this morning and I need to pull some more too but my garden gloves are sadly worn out.  I did buy 2 new pair of gloves today. So I can get busy pulling weeds now.

Until next time, 

Love ya,