Sprung, And Other Updates

Sprung, versus my Springing post, or most of my posts since, I guess.  (I'll keep the cable issue separate - see last post.)

I've mentioned the weather and the luxuries of open windows, getting a new fence and new bushes, fire pits, gardens, plants and plantings.  The landscape and gardens are looking good and a I have a nice corner of our world to relax by a fire.  But this will be more of a pictorial post with some commentary.  All pictures but the fire pit were taken after arriving home from work today during a dry spell between thunderstorms.

The peonies have been beaten down relentlessly by the rain.  I power washed the steps 3 or 4 weeks ago but we haven't dried out long enough to seal them.  A weekend morning would be preferable for sealing, but now even a weeknight evening will have to do.  We just have to be able to dry out for a few days first.  And all sunflower seeds planted in this corner this year appear to have been pilfered, no matter how many times I reseeded.

The new bushes are still looking good.  We had to move a purple flowering plant that we just call 'purple floppy thing' to a different area since it spreads and grew too big in front of the bush on the left, it is now near the firewood.  I have 4 new, colorful butterfly solar lights along the garage and you will see 6 multi-bulb solar lights in the picture here that I had among the hostas along the back fence, but the hostas are too big and they did not get a good charge back there so I'll have to figure something else out.

The gardens are looking okay, some things are questionable but the seeds were a bit old.  The peonies on the back corners of the garage are now open and, apparently, both pink.  The nearer one is held up by a neighboring cage.

And in that cage are the only two sunflowers growing in the yard.  I also planted some in the corner behind the lilac but they got bit off when a few inches high, despite being caged.  I really hope I can get these two to grow up big and tall, and will have to rethink these before planting next spring.

And the back of the lilac that had to be cut for the fence installation has many new shoots.  I am encouraged and hopefully this will fill out more in a few years.  In the meantime, I'm going to remove more dirt from that corner and reconfigure the rock border.  Perhaps another bush back there?  We'll see.

And Friday night's fire pit was very nice.  Wish you were here for it.