Green Procrastination

Oh lordy, I have a ton of homework to do and I am just really, really, really not wanting to do any of it at all. I have totally hit a wall and am stewing in a nice pot of unmotivation. It's pretty much all painting with gouache that I need to get done and..just...ugh. I have been feeling like this all week and sometimes I think wonder what my problem is. I mean it's not like I have to do really sucky math or read something really boring. I'm painting! Colors! Patterns! Yay! Right?

Wrong. Instead I have been watching Beauty and the Geek reruns recorded on the DVR. That says it ALL.

So I thought I would procrastinate even more by posting some progress I have been making on the yard.

Tomorrow Jeff and I are going to the Home Improvement Store to buy materials for my raised garden beds. At first we were going to do two of these raised beds from Sunset:

But the other day I was going through my "Garden" magazine clipping file and came across another configuration of raised beds, again from Sunset. (Although I cannot for the life of me find the article online):
I love it! I knew there was a reason I hung onto this. So, plans have changed and I have already started removing the sod. Picture taken from upstairs window:

I really like that the center square is pavers, which was our first garden project J and I tackled together over at the old place so I feel pretty confident we can do this.

Next up we have a few progress shots of the area adjacent to raised beds above. This was actually the very first thing I "broke ground" on so-to-speak when we bought the house:

I don't know what the hell I thought I was going to do...I just started digging. Actually I take that back, I do know sort of know what I was trying to achieve and it was basically regrading the slope of this section of the yard because as you can see from the pic below it slopes toward the house, which is a no-no.


My mom suggested creating tiers so that is what I was/am trying to do. This hot mess is an in progress shot:

You can probably, maybe, kind of (?) see the tiers starting to take shape. Master Kim has been watching this progress thinking that I was actually going to start planting something. He told me somewhat exasperated the other day "I see you build garden for two years and nothing growing!" That's because I have just been moving dirt and sod from here to there. This picture actually looks a lot better than it used to. Jeff finally had enough and staged a shovel intervention and threw down an ultimatum because it was pretty much becoming an even larger unguided mess. So, here we are today. It's still a mess, but it's getting closer to something cohesive:

This needs some explaining I think:

1. and 2. - Blueberries

3. I put calla lily tubers here that I dug up from another area of the yard, but I am worried that they are staging a protest because I see no evidence of their awakening. I am trying to be patient.

4. I put more calla lilies here after I forgot that I also transplanted some Asiatic lilies, so we'll see who wins. So far the Asiatic lilies are kicking the calla lily's little tuber asses.

5. More Asiatic lilies and a red hot poker which is NOT looking happy. He's not exactly red-hot and not really poking. He's more of a yellow-green and decidedly limp.

6. I have a sedum black magic, dahlias, and some of those really yummy smelling lilies which I can't remember the names of. Everything but the dahlias are looking good, but I think it's just too early for dahlias right now.
7. Transplanted day lilies and bearded iris, both of which are looking great. There are also crocosmia bulbs that have yet to show any sign of growth.

8. Transplanted azalea, which so far is looking good even though I beat the heck out of it trying to extricate it from crowded gloom of the fence. It was behind the #2 circle in that mess of ivy. There is also a peony here which I took from the same place last fall. It came up, and it's a bit tiny but it's got a ton of blooms on it.

9. I am eventually going to put an arched trellis here that will lead over into that other plot, but we need to build a fence first.

As you can tell I am trying to remove pretty much every blade of grass in my yard and convert it to garden. There are just so many benefits to the health of our environment in terms of water consumption, absorption, ground water health, not to mention cultivating habitats for animals and insects. It has occurred to me lately that this would probably go a lot quicker if I rented a sod cutter, but that is an issue for another post. I have already yammered on too much as it is.