Ahh, thanks PPal!
Lyn, that must be frustrating! It's nice when your hard work eventually pays off.
I had a lot of fill dirt dropped off for free and have spread that around, just got another huge load last week, it's currently sitting in my driveway waiting to be wheelbarrowed into the garden to raise some areas.
Doing a flashback: I just found these old pictures, taken April-May 2011 a month after we moved in. Thankfully the pathways were already there. Shows part of my large collection of over 600 potted plants we hauled up here truck load after truckload.
And here a couple of weeks later we just had all the large overgrown shrubs removed. Opened up the garden and allowed us to see the row of redwoods out back in the greenbelt which extended the feel of the garden.
I planted a few things but worked on a lot of other areas so many things stayed in pots the rest of the year. This was taken Oct. 2011 New lawn area going in with sprinklers and covered in hardware cloth to keep out gophers.
I took this on March 15 2012, things were just starting to grow and I remember thinking as I took this shot that I hated the just planted look with all the dirt showing and that it would take forever to fill in.
This is exactly 2 months later, May 15, 2012, standing in almost the same spot!
I try to mix things up, not have the same types of plants right next to each other so that there is always something of interest, either in bloom or with foliage. I personally don't care for the rows or groups of one type of plant like daylilies, iris or roses all planted together. I have one section that has several daylilies and iris all clustered together. When they all finished blooming, it was just a bunch of foliage, ugh, boring, so I will be moving some plants around and add other perennials for a more extended color interest.
It's a big learning curve for me, often quite overwhelming, even now after 2+ years, having this much space after years of tiny lot living. But seeing how fast things fill in here makes me grateful everyday that we found this place and I live here!
