Actual Gardening!

I did some actual gardening yesterday.  I really wanted to stay in bed, but my husband dragged me out so we could plant the butterfly bushes my Aunt gave to us.  I ended up really enjoying myself.  It was good to be outside, in the sun, and to become familiar with the garden again.

I wish I had some photos of the new bed.  I found the camera, but I'm still working on the cord...plus my memory card is full.  I'm a mess.

Another awful MS Paint garden plan...

In the "plan" above, the four large multi-colored circles are the newly planted butterfly bushes.  We had a fifth white bush, but we ended up using it in a different bed.  The three small olive green circles are clumps of Siberian iris we received from my parents as pass-along-plants (possibly Caesar's Brother).  We had stuck them along the fence back in May without delineating the bed, so they were hidden in ridiculously tall grass.  The dark green blob at the bottom and oval at the top are probably skimmia.  I'm still investigating, but they're a low growing evergreen shrub with red berries that does not appear to be a holly.  And finally, the small green circle at the top is a mountain laurel.


I actually have an old picture of the mountain laurel!

We used "mulch" from where our trees were removed and the stumps were ground out to cover the bed.  This isn't usually recommended since fresh wood chips can rob the soil of nitrogen when they decompose.  We let the wood chips age for over two months, so it shouldn't be too bad.  I'm also planning to apply a combination nitrogen/phosphate fertilizer when I plant bulbs in this bed later in the fall.

Did you do any gardening this weekend?