Amateur green thumb

When we bought our house last Winter we knew the yard would need work. When Spring arrived I felt beaten down by the jungle of weeds and overgrowth that appeared back there. I did a bit of research online and decided to solarize the entire yard to kill the jungle. I covered all the growth with sheets of heavy black plastic that I found in the roofing aisle of Rona.

Here's a picture from this Spring. The plastic is still there covered up by the leaves.



Here's a shot looking towards the back of the house. Not so pretty.



Last summer we met with a landscaper and told her our dream for the yard. She drew up some plans and quoted us a price. We postponed the project. Since Hubby had a great year with his show, we booked our landscaper for her first outdoor spot this season. While we waited for the date to arrive, Hubby entered us into a Home Depot contest for a new back yard. The winner hasn't been announced yet.

Here is the result of our landscaper and her crew's hard work. That's Lynn, our landscaper, in the first two shots:






We picked up the great teak patio furniture off of Kijiji! It rocks!

So, here's what I did today:





Me working on the shade garden. Check out the milk jugs and belly!





The shade garden:



The sun garden:



It's my first garden! I've given myself permission to make mistakes this year. I figure it can only improve as I learn. I read some bits of a few books tnat I took out of the library and prepared a list of shade and sun plants before we went to the local garden centre. Thanks to Hubby for helping with the selections.

After two hours of bending, digging, watering and cleaning up (I missed my pre-natal yoga class) I was exhausted! My shower felt great!