Garden progress!

This year saw leap-and-bounding changes to the garden "space" (not much) that surrounds our house. Although the house reaches almost the boundary of the property, the trained eye can detect patches on non-house that I believe gardeners call "dirt." Naturally, the largest amount of this growth-enabling substance is right where the sun doesn't shine, along our house's eastern side and in shade of the neighbors and two trees. Here's how that area looked in April of 2006.

To improve the space in general, we added a gravel path to the side yard in 2007. This meant pulling up the bony bricks, lining the path with something practical, and adding an initial line of plants to the front sidewalk, which runs along the top edge of this photo. In went a pair of rhododendrons, some pachysandras, and a couple of other flowering plants. That helped, but looks even better this year after the new terracing and a half-dozen flora species.

Of all the flowers, I look forward to the lilies the most. They come in a beautiful orange-red, as seen below. If only they stuck around more than a couple of weeks! Maybe a complement of long-bloomers will add some balance to their burn-out-young mentality. 

Our best shot of this year's lilies, which bloom a gorgeous deep red.