When it comes to gardening I find it amazing that a whole lot of work can look like a little bit of nothing. That’s how I feel today. I know that we are making progress, but it doesn’t much show. I could spend a month just cleaning the mess out of the area behind the house, but that isn’t my focus at present, and I have to keep telling myself that. Truly, I could easily keep a full-time gardener busy. As I was cleaning out one of the beds in the backyard this morning, I was dreaming about just that. He or she could live in my downstairs—basement level that is finished—and I’d provide food and a small stipend. Ha. Ha. Ha. I can hear my daughters laughing as they read this. My second dream is to find a middle school student who has the soul of a gardener and would love such a project while receiving a reasonable wage, suitable for one too young to get a “real” job.

Yesterday, when I went to Roanoke, I bought a huge hosta in a three-gallon can along with two new varieties of heucheras. This morning, I hacked the hosta into ten pieces and planted them. The heucheras I added to the area around the plum tree. I know in my heart that someday this will all look fabulous, but now the new plants look puny and isolated. Gardening certainly is an act of faith.

Blogger is giving me fits--it's too lame to describe--so the only thing I can see to do is to provide information about the pictures below by numbering them, 1-6:

1. In the first picture you can see the huge pile of monkey grass that Paul dug out. I'm letting it dry out so that I can put it into my garbage can, the only way I've figured out how to dispose of plant mess.

2. In photo #2, you can see the pieces of hosta I put in from the giant hosta I hacked up.

3. The same is true for the third picture. Small pieces of hosta are sticking out of the ground. The bed actually looks better in person than it does in this picture.

4. A previous owner did a Herculean task of gathering rounded rocks and putting them as borders for the many flower beds on this property. It must have taken her forever. Over time, some of the rocks became deeply buried, so my neighbor dug these up for me so that I can place them anew. It was a surprise when I came home one day.

5. I can't wait for these oriental poppies to bloom. Things will look better after I haul off the monkey grass.

6. This last photo isn't a very good one because I took it when the lighting wasn't the best. My little plum tree is now surrounded by a variety of heucheras. Each one is different.