Zinnias

I planted the first wave of zinnia seeds yesterday, and if they haven't been washed away by the rain, we'll soon have more


I wanted to name our third daughter Zinnia (at R.Robinson's brilliant suggestion), but it was vetoed. I vetoed Martin's suggestion of "Jemima" (too many pancakes and Jemima Puddleduck), so all's fair. Still, Zinnia would have made one heck of a name.

Line the Way

Hoorah! Martin used landscape fabric and about 300 stones (he collected in the graveyard, etc.) to line one path of our garden. Our friend Luis then helped us out and filled the paths with mulch. We're RATHER pleased with our first path!



So here's our side garden last spring:

Here it is this spring (a wreck):

And here it is this morning, after a terribly hard rain and thunder and lightning that blinked the electricity during breakfast. (Click on picture for better viewing.)

The mess in the left corner is the children's garden in progress, which will feature a river/sand bed with trickling water, huge boulders and stumps, and sunflowers and cherry tomatoes rambling over everything (and maybe a pumpkin vine or two).

P.S. We didn't have to toil to the lengths of my sister and husband; they live literally in the middle of the desert in Arizona, surrounded by miles of sand and mesas on the horizon. Please see their remarkable results (Luke at one point actually Shopvacced the garden after a spring dust storm!) at Heather's blog.