home improvements or it started with pansies

Here's a quick photo update on what we've accomplished in terms of yardwork over the last little while. It all started with a small pot of pansies I purchased at our Loeb-next-door for our front entrance.

I've discovered that pansies need to be watered regularly or they droop and become "wilted spinach," as one Web site, which I can't seem to find again, phrased it. Mine are sheltered from the rain by the overhang, so I end up watering them each morning (or whenever they resemble wilted spinach).

Then James and Dad put in the patio blocks (you read it first, right here, on May 30), so I felt compelled to spruce up our backyard with the purchase of a shepherd's hook and a hanging basket of wave petunias. One such combination just didn't seem like enough, so I bought another.


Then, this past Saturday morning, we exchanged our special invitation for a lilac bush. See, Minto Homes sent out invitations for a free plant to everyone who had purchased a home from them in the last year. There were about 5 different varieties for us to choose from, but I e-mailed an RSVP for a lilac. At the time I was thinking that perhaps I should telephone to follow up, but I stopped myself. There's a Dilbert comic circa the early 1990s that I clipped from the paper once--it might still be kicking around in my stuff--wherein the boss asks his administrative assistant to e-mail a report, fax it in case the recipient's e-mail isn't working, and then telephone to confirm the fax was received. Obviously, I didn't want to succumb to the same sort of legendary overkill.

Fortunately for me, though, I had the foresight to print out my e-mailed RSVP and take it along, because our names were not on the list when we walked over to pick up our lilac from the Minto Sales Office. Apparently my e-mail was swallowed up in cyberspace, maybe by Pac-Man ghosts. I should have phoned. But because I produced the evidence, we received our lilac (see photo above, far left). I'd hoped for a purple one, but it seems Minto only had pink and white to begin with, and white lilacs were the only ones remaining at 10:30am (they'd started dispensing shrubbery at 10).

We decided that, before we could plant our lilac tree, we would need some peat moss and topsoil from Home Depot. While there, I spotted a thornless rosebush, and I snuck it into our cart. James had done the same with the Weed'n'Feed. We've planted the rosebush in the front yard--yes, the plot of land beside the driveway on which we heap our snow. We'll have to wrap it or put a teepee around it for winter. Thankfully, that won't be for some time yet.


Instead of peat moss, we bought something called "BeatsPeat." It's made from "spent coconut rind," and is purportedly a sustainable alternative to peat moss. It certainly does retain moisture: I don't think I'll have to water my pot of marigolds ever again. (But I'm jumping ahead of myself.)

Upon our return, we settled down to dig, no easy task, because after the initial plunging the spade through the sod from last year, with every strike we hit a stone. (When I say "we," I mean that I started digging, but James soon took over given my lack of muscle/progress. I was relegated to scooping the rocks out of the hole.) Oh, how I miss Manitoba gumbo!

Of course, one trip a day to Home Depot is never enough. I'd tried to persuade James earlier that we needed two bags of topsoil; evidently I still, after 9 years, lack the conviction necessary to influence my spouse. The bright side is that I volunteered to get more, which enabled me to buy a few marigolds, too. That, in turn, meant that after I returned with the topsoil, I had to run out to buy a planter for them. (Oh, the sacrifices I make!) I finally found a suitable one at Rona. It's not exactly what I wanted--I covet my neighbor's planter--but it'll suffice.

And after suffering through two of the hottest, most humid days on the weekend--at 31˚C with humidity that made it feel like 41˚C (source: Weather Network's site), it was almost pleasanter to be outdoors than in--the Sears serviceman came to our rescue on Monday morning. In about 5 minutes he was able to resuscitate the unit which the trio of installers had pronounced dead on arrival after 3 hours of labor on Friday afternoon.

The next thing on the list is eavestroughing. Our neighbor obtained estimates for our entire row of units, and it looks like we'll go ahead with that.

So it's all coming together.