Taking It To The Next Level

After turning to a complete sissy yesterday over the frozen, hard-to-handle bags of topsoil, I came home and ordered 1.5 yards of topsoil from the garden center near my house. The truck was here within the hour! Now that's what I call service!

In this picture the topsoil looks nice and clean but I found it to be very rocky with clumps of grass in it. I sure hope that stuff doesn't grow in my new beds. Since I've only bought bagged topsoil I was expecting rock and weed free dirt. This stuff looks like they picked it up from the site they are excavating down the street from my house!

It took about an hour to get the topsoil spread on top of the wet newspaper + mulched leaves where the new beds will be next year. Mr. W came home while right in the middle of this escapade and took pity on me. With his help I was able to finish in 1/2 the time!

As you can see, I should have ordered WAY more. I thought I calculated this correctly but ran out before I was able to complete the good neighbor garden bed where the Azaleas are planted. This new look, coupled with the new book I purchased last night Front Yard Gardens has really brought out my hatred for the poodle shrubs. They must go!

Bad Gardener!!

I can hear my mother now. "Why don't you pick up after yourself? You're always leaving your toys laying all over the place it's no wonder you lose keep losing stuff!" It snowed yesterday. One of the things I love about Chicago is that it always seems to snow on Thanksgiving. I left these outside after cutting back my shrub roses the other night. At this rate, all my tools will be rusty next year. Mom is right - I should be more careful with my toys.

GB gave me some of her excess mulch and I almost had enough for every rose to have it's own bag. This was Monday evening and I was working feverishly to cut back the roses and get the mulch on them before it started raining.

I don't know if I did it right but I cut back the roses and piled the mulch around the bottom. I thought I might have done this too early but today it's freezing outside!
Regarding dirt:
I went to buy dirt today and was amazed that Menards had already gotten rid of their topsoil. No more till spring. Home Depot had it but it was frozen solid! I got discouraged and went home. I'll just suck it up and have it delivered.

I still have bulbs to plant! I'm thinking big patio pots at this point.