More pandemic planting

We don't just have a well mound. We have a weird mound. There's a mound on the front lawn, and we don't know why it's there. At least, we didn't know before I did this. This was even more of a weedy mess than the well mound, but I forgot to take a before picture. The sellers had planted ornamental grass and a small bush there. I took them out in favor of native plants.



This has some of the same stuff as the other mound- bee balm, phlox, aster, purple coneflower, and amsonia. It also has coreopsis.



Oh, and I found out what's in the mound. See that empty spot? There's a tree stump buried there.

Pandemic planting

Time for more native plants! Our well mound was looking sad. Do you see the bit that looks cut off in the left of the photo? That's from Dave crashing into it with the mower. Haha!

Maybe I should back up a bit. We have well water, and the access cap has to be in a mound. I don't know why. I also don't know when we'd ever access the water that way, since it comes into the house underground via the pump.

Anyway, it gets a lot of sun and seemed like a great place to plant some stuff. So I dug everything up and added some soil before I started planting.

Tada! There's columbine, aster, bee balm, salvia, purple coneflower, crocosmia, phlox, and something else that blooms in the spring that I can't remember right now.

Our township turns yard waste into mulch and compost, which we can then take for free. People really make the most of it. Sometimes there are cars waiting to grab some from the piles. It's a cool program. I grabbed a bit to top off the mound.

Before I planted the stuff in the well mound, I put some aster with the coral honeysuckle.

It's wood's blue aster, a compact, native variety. This weekend I hope to start the next gardening project!

Coral honeysuckle

We had an unusually cold spring, and I've been itching to transform our property to be more bird, bee, and butterfly friendly with native plants. There's also a ton of landscape rock that I need to remove before I can replace some invasives with natives. The first project: coral honeysuckle!

Dave took this pic. Jedi is checking out the plants.

Hummingbirds are amazing. We've seen them randomly a couple of times in the yard since we got the house last year, and they've come to the hummingbird feeder a few times. But not enough! Haha. This plant is supposed to be great at attracting them, plus other pollinators. I got the "Major Wheeler" variety, which is native and is supposed to have more blooms. It also has berries that other birds may eat in the fall.

Tada!

I removed the sod, put down a little bit of new soil and compost, and planted the vines. Whew. With our rocky soil, this took much longer than I was expecting. It was getting dark when I was done. I hope they grow!!

Pandemic painting project

I was determined to blog more this year, and now we're all stuck inside because of the pandemic. I hope everyone is safe and healthy and that this is all over soon.

I've done some pandemic painting over the past couple of weeks. First I did the dining room. Before, it was green with brown trim.

Sherwin Williams Secure Blue, with Extra White on the trim

I love the blue! Yep, that's paint on the floor. I had a little bit of an accident with the paint tray.



Oops! I tripped on the sheets on the floor, landed in the paint tray, and catapulted paint everywhere. This photo was taken a few days later. I was much more covered in paint after it happened! Haha. I'm not upset about the floor. I plan on putting in hardwood floors eventually. Until then, maybe we'll put a rug over it. Or not.

The next room I tackled was the downstairs bathroom. It's a small half bath. It originally was beige with brown trim. I went with lilac.

SW Inspiring Lilac, with Extra White trim

I like how this turned out. The next room to paint will be the upstairs hallway bathroom. I'm doing that in SW Lighthearted Pink. Most of the house is beige, so I need to add some color to the place. The white trim really brightens up the rooms compared to the dark wood.