Carolyn Hestand Kennedy

Low budget daffodils

Always a good idea to throw in a few more daffodils.  Possibly the best delayed gratification for the least effort in a plant that will perennialize in Texas.

Then again, I thought I was adding to my collection.  My limited budget, combined with my nagging addiction, says that I must add a few each year to bulk up over time, but the bulbs I planted last year did not return.  Boo!  These and the ones planted last year are 'Fortune' which have lovely larger blooms, but are apparently unreliable.

There are several clumps of inherited daffodils in too much shade around my backyard which I've been meaning to dig up and move to sunnier spots, but somehow my low budget method hasn't been motivational in this regard.

Lawn elimination

 

Way too much lawn.

Waaaaaaay too much.  It has long bothered me, when looking out the window (behind the orange chairs), that all I can see is St. Augustine and my neighbors house. 

In effort to reduce this oversized lawn and blur the view of both neighbors and the street, I've been slowly extending this bed along the edge of my yard, seen here as it looked during the first spring we lived here – 2011.

Last fall, I had the bed stretched out to just beyond my 'Easy Does It,' rose.

In early winter, I plopped in a Mexican Buckeye (Ungnadia speciosa), along with a couple of little companions over to one side where I could see it from the aforemention window.  

The Buckeye is a native that I've been considering for some time since their large winter seed pods grabbed my attention outside Oak Cliff's Belmont Hotel where they are beautifully planted along a walkway.

The idea of this stupid looking isolated planting was to motivate myself to dig out the area in between. Same thing I did when I first began curving this bed around the front of the yard.

You can kind of see the cut lines I made with my edger. 

Doing all the work myself with a shovel and mattock, it did not happen quickly, but the bed is now one long curvy snake, ammended with compost and worm castings, that will be widened and stuffed with plants over time.

Clashy

Loropetalum chinensis in bloom in late winter when there is precious little color.

 

Nothing special, but this holly provides some interest in winter when not much else is going on.

Aaaaaggggggh!  The two together?!  Hideous!

Add new orange hose!  Ick.