Mr. Aitch and I cleared most of the leaves out from the front flower beds on Saturday. 

If you look closely, you can see the silvery icicle garland strung across the railings to keep the birds from roosting and pooping there.

After looking at the pictures, it doesn’t seem like we did such a great job getting all those leaves out!

Those round “grates” above should keep my Balloon flowers from falling over.  I have a third plant farther back that hasn’t started to emerge yet so I’ll need to buy another one of those supports.  I should have taken some “before” pictures but when I thought about it, it was too late to get my camera.

I need to put some layers of newspaper down on the bare ground to keep the weeds from getting a stronghold before the tomato plants go in.  Yes, we plant vegetables in our front flower beds.  It gets the best sun plus that area has the best soil since it’s a raised bed.  Our property is mostly shale.  We had to truck in topsoil just to get the grass to grow. 

Oops!  We forgot to do this side of the house.  Maybe we’ll tackle that project today.

Yay! My lilac is starting to bloom!