Civic Duty

Back at the beginning of the year, you may remember we had a water line issue. The water was leaking in the snow for about 3 weeks and we found ourselves thankful for all the "Little House on the Prairie" books I had read as a child. The KUB crew took approximately 90 minutes to move our line once our name came up on the schedule. We've been living with a hole in the landscaping (check above picture) since then.

Well, Jeff took off work all of last week and set about the landscape as one of his task lists. Here are a few of the happys that are now gracing our yard.

Snowmound- a darling little plant with touchable qualities (per my request for our munchkins)


"Otto Luyken" an English Laurel- ubiquitous, but a good evergreen to sit under our windows and not take them over



Cherokee Chief flowering dogwood in Madeline's favorite color- pink!

This is the civic duty part; we are one street off the dogwood trail and nary a dogwood tree in our yard. Scandalous! Knoxville is the home of the Dogwood Arts festival after all! Don't worry, I am thoroughly ashamed each time I drive down the road.

I am on the lookout for a bench to go next to it, so I can watch the girls walk home from school in the future. And maybe a little table to go next to it, just to hold my iced tea and book.

I'm hoping that in the distant future; like 20 years, this will help block the view of my neighbor's roof line.





Manhattan spreading Euonymus

For some unknown reason, the previous owners were one plant short on finishing off the hedge to hide our iron retaining walls. The birds like to spread their art here. We prefer to cover it up.






Isn't this a glorious view??? We enjoy this each time we sit at our kitchen table (up one level ). It is depressing to look into your neighbor's lattice and dog house and feel like you have to wave at them when they come out to feed the dogs. Blech. And, exactly 3 days after we planted these arborvitae's, they started an addition. The current back porch is the new footprint for the addition and they will be adding a porch onto the back of that. Yippee!!! These arborvitae's are supposed to grow up to 60 feet and about 12-20 feet wide. They can grow 3 feet a year, so Madeline and I have begun to sing to them and give them hugs.

The tree on the far right is a Blue Spruce we planted on our wedding anniversary our first year in this house. I love them, but they just don't grow fast enough to kill that view.

It's funny for me to look at the front of our house. You don't have to be a "Where's Waldo" expert to spot the line where our landscape budget ran out. Ah, well; the fall is a better time to plant anyway.