Mystery Mums

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As I’ve mentioned in recent posts, I’ve been spending this gorgeous weather we’ve had lately outside. And while that would normally be lovely regardless of the activity, gardening is definitely not one of my favorites. I know there are plenty of people who enjoy it, but I wonder: do they all just live in a different part of the country? Mosquitoes around here make gardening pretty effing terrible.

Anyway, onto the update. As a blogger, the whole “after” thing takes a lot more work when it’s an exterior project, mainly due to how many other things there are in the shot that might ruin the whole look. I had all of the exterior siding repaired less than two months ago, so I told myself that I wanted to get the rest of the yard looking more finished so I could have some decent pics of the house for a change (after five years of being embarrassed by it, I think we’re just going to chalk this up to stubbornness). So, next up on the to-do list: the front garden.

My front garden gets planted about once or twice a year, and then is left alone for the rest (mostly because I have too many other projects going on to care). Still, considering that it’s directly in front of the house and all of the new work on the siding I just had done, leaving this alone would leave my “after” pictures looking pretty shabby, even with the new hanging baskets:

I started out by cleaning up the scraggly shrubs. I’d already done a lot of the trimming before this point, but pine straw tends to get really tangled underneath and between the lower branches. I found this little shrub rake that seems to work pretty well at getting at the pine straw without pulling at the branches above.

I then began digging each hole for the new plants. As you can probably guess from the post title, I went with some fall mums. They’re perennials, so there’s always the chance that they might stick around next year, but you never know what this garden’s going to look like (and you longtime readers may remember the mangled one that never came back after it was destroyed going in!).

To help protect the area a little bit more from weeds, I used some watered-down newspaper before spreading around some dark brown mulch.

And there you have it: mums!

It really makes the rest of the front area look so much better. (Ignore the light blue paint on the ceiling that isn’t finished, though… it’s mid-project.)

There’s only one little thing, though… I have no idea what color these are going to be. There were no labels in the store, the clerk didn’t have a clue, and when the buds are this small, they all tend to look the same color (though I think they’re probably light, such as white or yellow… the darker colors tend to have a slight hue in the middle of each bud).

The front area of the house has never looked quite this good. It’s really coming along, and I’m glad that all of this yard work is hopefully paying off for a very colorful fall. What color do you think the mums will be?