I Just Put Down the Computer for a Second

When my MIL was here, we did a lot of sightseeing, but we were spending like five minutes a night on the computer. She finally made a comment about how much more time we spend on the computer than she does. So we shut them down for the most part. We had nice wholesome nights of reading books together. We watched genealogy shows and Antiques Roadshow, but otherwise our entire evenings were upheaved. (Right now the dude and I are back on our computers. And all's right with the world.) I hardly picked up a needle.


Weedy
My MIL is a gardener, so we visited gardens, and gardening centers and actually did gardening. We started by weeding the new bed. (Yes, I had really let things go.) But she's a real trooper, because while I was at work, she weeded three more beds! Don't worry, we gave her time off for good behavior and took her to Winterthur, Longwood, Bowman's Hill Wildflower Preserve, Morris Arboretum, Haverford College's Arboretum, and Chanticleer. The latter is her absolute favorite.

Midway 

I was still trying to decide about plants and how to lay them out when we were ready to plant. I have to admit to a lot of hemming and hawing and backing and forthing. (What you see here was put in last fall, randomly.) Then I just drew something up and stuck with it. She helped us plant on Mother's Day. (Earlier that day, she had vacuumed the downstairs. Because the thing to do to your MIL on Mother's Day is to put her to work. Hangs head in shame.) (But she loves gardening and she did ask to "Hoover," instead of "sitting around like a lemon.") (She's industrious.)

All Over but the Growing

New gardens always look a little sad, but in the end, your two puny daylilies will grow large enough that you can split them into five and line the new walkway with them. So we must wait to see the full glory of the purple garden. (Except for the grass, everything flowers purple.) (There are still six plants I need: one callicarpa, two caryopteris, and three dwarf New England asters, but those come out later in the season.)

When I first showed you our happy little house in 2005, we had a Japanese maple tree that we soon lost. We've wanted to replace it for years. In fact, for the past two years I've had a redbud on my wish list. The university where the dude works is participating in Plant One Million and they were giving away free trees. (Including redbuds.) We signed up for a small flowering tree and were put on the wait list. We were excited when we were taken off the list two weeks ago. We tried to get there early in the morning, so we could get first choice and a redbud. The bad news is no redbud (they didn't have any, not that we were too late). So we were introduced to a few flowering trees.

Meet our new fringe tree. It's a lightly scented native that we really liked when we saw it in Longwood last week. How lucky we are!