House (Garden) Update: Last Weekend, Part 2

Seeing the snow on the ground really brought home how much more I would have liked to have done before winter hit.

How the yard and garden looked last Saturday:


I started to shovel this, but then decided that sweeping was more appropriate. There was some ice underneath. I chipped away a bit, and then decided I needed to get grit or salt for the winter, to avoid potential lawsuits.

The sour cherry finally decided it was time to drop its leaves:


*sigh*... I wanted to divide the perennials in this garden... move some to the back, and spread these out a bit. They're too crowded:

Or, if not that, at least clean up the old growth so that I don't have to do it when it's all moldy in the spring.

Another spot that needs the tops chopped off:

Plus dividing, digging up the weed roots, etc.

The plum had also finally dropped its leaves, however, it did it *before* (or during?) the snow:


Perennials that need planting:


Dang tree where I want to put the perennials, still standing:

(I've been busy.)

Blackberries that need training, plus a weedy area I need to deal with:


Trash can full of irises, plus a day lily from the front garden, just plopped on *top* of the ground.

(I've got enough so that if this one doesn't survive, it's not the end of the world. I had been planning to plant it behind the fence in the back lane, until I discovered there was only an inch of dirt there before I hit a concrete block... and decided to leave the concrete block where it was.)

The "back forty" (I think I picked up calling it that from Crazy Aunt Purl) that needs to be worked into a proper vegetable garden bed:


Oooo... cool stuff:

The compost bin has dropped a foot. Not sure if that's just settling, or if there's composing going on. (Hoping for the latter, but it may be the former.) After this photo, I stirred it and added more leaves. It dropped another foot since then, and so it got another stir, plus leaves and jack-o-lantern pieces. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

What did I end up accomplishing last Saturday?

I raked the leaves in the front lawn:

(Raking leaves on snow is odd.) I didn't try to do a really good job, just went for the areas that had more leaves... I wasn't interested in clearing all the snow, after all. ;)

I pruned the plum tree:

I cut off the really low branch that bothered me, trimmed any branches I found that were crossing or broken, plus some that were too high up.

I also shifted some concrete blocks that were annoying because they made my parking spot shorter:

(They're on both the left and right sides of this photo... this is the "after" shot, taken the next day because it had gotten too dark for decent photos. They had been immediately in front of my car's bumper, stacked just tall enough that the bottom of my bumper would hit them.)

I stuck my garden lights in random locations where the ground was soft:


(I'll spread them out and put them in better places next year... for now, they're not cluttering up the inside of the house.)

And, after it was dark (doh!), I got three perennials planted:


There was no gardening on Sunday... I helped mom at her art show that day.