Finally done!

Yes, finally finished.  It cost a little more than we had been quoted but then we asked him to do more than what was on the quote.  He has agreed to come back in October and help David divide the Hosta, and he has agreed to do some work for the neighbour in the fall, as well.

Here is the North area with everything done, and the top layer being brown mulch.  We had a choice of mulch colour but opted for basic brown as opposed to red or yellow.  As you can see,the rocks are in place, as well.

On the South side, not only is the Hydrangea in place and mulched, but he area closer to the steps was done as well.  David plans to put the higher Hosta behind the existing ones, when the time comes.

Now for something entirely different.  Have either of you every bought La Cocina Tortilla chips?  They are much lighter, mildly salted, and much easier for elderly teeth to manage.  There is no store in the area that stocks them on a regular basis, but one store brings them in about twice a year, as a special.  I heartily recommend them, if you every come across them. 

Looking mighty fine...

It is so nice to see the pictures - they speak a thousand words. I don't know names of plants either but I love what the south bed looks like with the new hydrangea, and the new soil. You will be very happy with results and as you say, worth every penny for you.
Had some more issues with internet yesterday which cost me about three hours of my time.I initially called my server after I had tried to troubleshot first myself. They were less than helpful, saying they had no troubles on their end and I would have to book a technician to visit the house. OK! So I called my geeksquad on the phone. They helped best they could but ended up saying that it was the server issue because it was not recognizing our username and passwords when we logged on. he said to call the local Best Buy (where our geeksquad contract is) and they could maybe diagnose if we took the tower in. That store said No way, they had no means to diagnose at the store with the sever. So last resort I called the server back - after waiting about 30 minutes (as they had an unusually large number of calls) another fellow (not the same one had first spoken with)came on to say Why yes, after I first spoke with them they did identify a problem and they had the technicians working on it.  About two hours later, the server specialist called me back to say they had fixed the problem, and would I please log to ensure it was OK now, while they waited on the line to confirm. It was the first fellow i had spoken to initially that called me - he had been very short with me the first time, and i wondered if maybe they had him make the call just to smooth things over. I was annoyed with his attitude the first time, but said nothing rude to him. This second time he was all "nicey, nicey"  You never know do you? Long story short, we are back to business.
I have a call into my Broker to see if Mike can get some truck insurance through them. last year he paid $979.00 through his company he was dealing with in North bay but got his statement in the mail last week asking for $2317.00 for this year. That seems a little high!!  Hope we can work things out to the better for him.
Well, back to the garden and more weeding and trimming tomatoes, and tieing up tomatoes. Lots of fun  Take care

Birthday celebration again in our family

One of our menfolk is celebrating today... Happy Birthday Jim!
You have a nice day (of quiet reflection? haha)
Best Wishes.

Not quite finished

The fellow was late showing up and was only able to spend a few hours , but he managed to get all of the soil spread, and all of the plants into the ground.  Tomorrow he will come back to add the landscaping fabric and mulch.  Over all he did a little more than we had originally discussed, so we expect the final damage to be more than we anticipated, but still manageable.  There was no way we could have done it all ourselves, so worth every penny.

Here is how all of the little plants clustered around Lion, to spend the night

first thing in was the Tall Lime Hydrangea on the South side of the stairs.  It will grow to about 4 feet tall, and fill out quite a bit, but willhave smaller flowers..  He then spread soil throughout this whole section of the garden, as we had discussed splitting the Hosta come fall--they are quite root bound.  Not surprising considering that we transplanted them from the house on Woodside.

Now, I'm not sure what these all are,but I know the one in the corner is a drought resistant miniature Maple, what will go through several colour changes over the course of the year.  It will grow to about 4 feet high.  Can't remember what the one next to it is, but the third one in that row is another Hydrangea, one that will have the big ball-shaped flowers.

Then in the corner by the driveway, is a juniper, that will go to about 7 feet tall, with a 2 1/2 to 3 foot spread.  There is a middle row that is hard to see.  It consists of three plants with darker leaves that will grow up to about 2 feet high. My rocks will go between them

 The very front row is smaller ground cover plants that will only be about 6 inches high, but will spread up to 2 feet.

Half done

The young fellow came as promised, and dug out both the area on the North side of the steps and the bush on the South side of the steps.  He hauled everything away, and then brought some plants for us to try out in various areas.  We discussed the plants and made our choices.  Tomorrow he will be bringing a truck load of soil, a load of mulch, and a roll of landscaping fabric, and then planting the things we have chosen.  He is a nice young chap and a hard worker.  We found him through a local plant nursery, and everything appears on the up and up.

Here are a couple of views of the North area in all its glory

And here it is all dug up.  We are hoping to be able to keep the rocks.

And here is the before and after view of the area South of the door.  We plan to put a Hydrangea in the area of the bush.  Removing the bush was a heck of a job, even after David lent him the tools he needed, after breaking his shovel, on the roots.

Wonderful news!

I remember how upset you were when it was lost, and the lengths you went to in trying to find it.  Someone was looking out for you that day, if it got lost in the car and not the community.


I finally got to spend an hour with my friend. Shirley today.  She is not doing well, and I think it is making her somewhat depressed.  She had developed blood clots on, or in, her retinas, and has been receiving a series of shots for it.  She says that she is encouraged because it isn't getting any worse, but this has been going on for months, and it doesn't seem to be getting any better.  A friend is helping her finish up the quilting projects she had started, but she really isn't able to do any of the work herself.

Tomorrow the fellow is supposed to be coming to dig out and re-plant our front flower bed.  I'll try to get pictures.

Time to write

I did not realize how my communications have apparently been missing for awhile. I guess suffering through this hot spell contributed, as well as being busy with keeping the garden wet, and produce tended.  Yesterday we went to North Bay for the entire day to meet up with Harry's brother Ted and wife Deanna from Kirkland Lake. They are attending a family reunion - The Lauzon family - which is her side. We took them shopping to different stores and then she had a Foot appointment for 2 pm, then we went to eat and dropped them off at the Hotel about 4 pm - just as the skies broke and the rain came. On the way back home we stopped into the Nursery and Harry bought two more 4 qt baskets of blueberries. I shall have to freeze one basket today and we can eat the other.
The day before I decided to clean out the car - vacuum and clean windows and the dust off the front etc. Surprise !! I found my missing gold earring lost in the winter. Harry gave them to me for Christmas and I had worn them only a few times. I thought it was long gone - lost somewhere in North bay. How it ever found it's way into the slot on the central console where Harry keeps his sunglasses I will never know how but there it was hiding. Sure enough the clasps was loose and probably why I lost it.
When we are next in Huntsville i will take them into the jewellry store where they were bought and see if they can be fixed or replaced? That is a happy story for my week, and I was thrilled with this outcome!  I shall write more soon. Take care!