In the Mad Garden, Day 3

 

After a rough start,  work resumed on our back yard Sunday afternoon.
And then, Monday, it turned cold.  30's, 40's, a wet, windy cold that chilled the bones. Is this Florida or what? That was maddening.
Today, another cold morning that finally warmed up to gorgeous, balmy skies. I hit the deck, literally, to fight the the bougainvillea which is eating our back yard. 

That's a pic of boganvillea above. More on that in another post. 

Here's our progress to date:

On Sunday, Brittany  trimmed and sawed away the branches on this tree and transplanted several plants to the front yard for me.
She also washed the car and scrubbed all the oil gunk off the tires.
I really do appreciate her help.

Richard tackled a good 20 foot section of the fence line for about an hour or so, and then escaped to the house to work on the kitchen for the first time since last October when he found out his grandmother was coming for Christmas.

To his credit, he later went back outside to dig the hole to transplant this hibiscus bush.
Ok I don't have a photo of it yet. I will, soon.   It was planted just to the right of Brittany in the photo above!  Wait till you see it and, I hope it lives!

Later, The American Idol judges stopped by to appraise the progress of the yard.

Randy said he "wasn't feeling it," and that it was "pitchy in spots."
Paula said all the small things a made her heart sing and that when we feel like hope is gone, to look inside us and be strong.
Mariah's manager threatened a lawsuit for copyright infringement.
Simon said the whole yard was "horrendous" and he felt like he had stepped into a pile of dog sh*t.
Which, unfortunately,  he had:

That's ol Buddy, sniffing his way in and around the uh, doggy fertilizer chunks. And all the weeds.
And true to his nature, Rico Suave' ran outside and sprayed all over Simon's front tire   At times he can be a good little kitty, wouldn't you say?

The size of our weed pile is now 2/3 the size of Rhode Island. There are 3 garbage cans filled up with boganvillea trimmings. They have needles the size of Wyoming.

I would pay good money for a weed shredder at the moment!
Stay tuned!

Comments

[Seamus]

How does you bougainvillea survive so well? Don't you get the occasional frost? Ours collapsed after the first minor frost and is showing no signs of revival. We thought about having a "Come-to-sprout-meeting" with it, but decided it was too close to Easter for comfort!

[Janet]

That Rico Suave sure is a smaht cat!

[pam]

Beautiful, even in transition!

[kenju]

Bougainvillea is so beautiful that I wouldn't mind if it could eat my yard!

[Leanne]

Yo yo yo, dude - as usual, Simon nailed it. He's always right, you know. What he failed to mention (as usual) is how much POTENTIAL it has. How it was once beautiful and will be beautiful again with a lot of hard work!

:D

[Laura]

Seamus, we rarely get a frost in my part of Tampa Bay, so that's a factor. Being close to the water, I don't think i've ever covered up any of my ferns or other plants when the frost warnings are hitting nearby counties.
I think I'll do a post on the it, because I also had several letters asking about it's care.

Janet, he sure is. Want him???

Thanks Pam and Judy. :)

And despite my making fun of Simon, I do think he's almost always dead on about the contestants. I find myself nodding in agreement a lot of the time, except when he's overly cruel!

Thanks, Leanne. It's a one day at a time thing.. LOL

[Mrs. G.]

Wow! You appear to live in paradise.