The Great Experiment

We've been working hard on fixing up our front yard, which is a pretty steep hill. It used to be a mass of weeds, dead ground cover, and more weeds. Really attractive. Our neighbors justloved us. (In our defense, it was like that when we moved in. And it only took us two and a half years to do something about it...)

We put in stone walls to create a terraced rise on the hill and decided to plant ivy as a ground cover on the lowest level, azaleas and a flower garden on the middle tier, and... well, we are still deciding what to do with the top, which rises a bit to the rest of our grassy front yard.

Over the Fourth of July weekend, I planted over 150 baby ivies. I love them. And someday they will grow to be big grown-up ivies. Did I mention I love them?

While I planted each individual baby ivy, Dan was working on the tier just above me, planting the baby azaleas. He loves them. Today, when he discovered some buds on them - a year before we expected any flowers - well, let's just say he was pretty excited.

And the top... I bought a packet of pumpkin seeds a couple years ago, but we never planted them. So we figured, hey, let's just see what happens! The boys planted six seeds straight across the top of the hill...

... they grew.

We are, again, the talk of the neighborhood.

We're planning on buying back the neighborly love with pumpkins come fall. But this one - our first-born - is ours.