April Fool's

I just can't wait to garden and plant things. It's killing me that there are hardly any plants at the usual drive-bys like Home Depot, Lowe's, Fred Meyer. We are re-landscaping the entire front yard at the moment. Had to rebuild the rock wall and now have a huge clean slate to work with. I have no idea what I'm going to do. I keep planning it and then re-planning it and changing my mind every half hour. It's harder to start from scratch I think, much easier to just fill in a few bare spots.

The wall is done as of Saturday afternoon. I don't even want to post a picture because it only looks like mud. The entire front yard is all dirt, not even a blade of grass. I think I'm going to do some before and after photos later, after I get it planted. Anyway, we still have to have a ton or two of topsoil delivered to fill in the top part before I can plant. And of course, there are hardly any plants out right now. Just the usual industrial landscaping stuff and a few stray perennials.

It's going to take so much time, like a whole year of seasons to find the right things that will take turns blooming between spring, summer and fall. I bought a pretty little Japanese Maple - a dwarf one that will only get 3-4 feet high, called Red Haired Dancing Girl. I think I have the perfect spot for it in the scheme of things, but I'm still shuffling it all around in my head. The whole project turned out so differently than we had originally planned that I've scrapped some of my previous ideas. But it's a good thing.

Anyway, I've been spending every free moment either picking around in the dirt, racing around to plant stores and nurseries, wandering around online looking for ideas, bulbs, starts, or thumbing through books and saved magazine spreads to try to get some kind of cohesive plan hatched. I was sort of thinking I could just come up with some master plan, some gorgeous show garden design and then do it once and stand back in awe. How naive. This afternoon I realized that it will probably be a constant work in progress and double the amount of time I spend weeding, pruning and digging around.

Hopefully this will be more fun than chore. Bring on the warmer weather. I want to stuff in tomatoes and zucchini and herbs and sunflowers and dahlias and . . . .

Oh, big note. As of today, the tax rate in Seattle changes from 8.8% to 8.9%. Everything will be adjusted on invoices and orders that go out after today. Who knows what they do with all our tax dollars. But the tax man will not be denied.