Trying to Cure my Black Thumb

Well, I probably only have a dark gray thumb.  I don't quite kill everything, but nothing has really ever flourished under my watch.  I've tried a tiny vegetable garden, flowers in the front yard, and even a simple orchid on my kitchen table.  I think that one is now in my parent's garage somewhere.  Poor little thing.  whoops.  Anyway, I've decided I'm going to get better.  Or at least give it a little try.  The front of my house started like this.

Pretty good, but a feel like its' a little dated.  There is hardly any grass, it's all weeds.  Especially on the weird slope toward the front by the sidewalk.  There's a tiny square right in the middle of the yard that is actually grass.  So last Saturday morning, I marched myself to Home Depot with big plans.  

Of course once I got there I was very overwhelmed and flustered.  But I managed to find the weed and feed and got a package.  Who knows if it was the right one, but I already sprinkled it everywhere so here's hoping it works.  I have plans put some grass seed down but I have to wait a month after the weed killer.  

Now for a little more interesting progress.

I coerced my brother to help me dig that big old bush out. (The one to the right of the front door.)  I'm pretty sure it was the last thing he wanted to do, but he's pretty great so he helped me anyway.  And he showed up looking like this.

I'm fairly sure that fashion statement is never catching on.  

He already cut the thing off with some sort of fancy saw and now the hard part was digging up the roots.  I pretended I was helping by digging some dirt out, but I'm pretty sure I was just in the way.  

The roots were pretty stubborn, but if you know Bobby, you probably know he's more stubborn.  Seriously, there's no match.

So after about 30 minutes of really hard work, we carried the stump to the curb!  

It already looks so different! And the porch is a little bigger than I expected it to be! I may take the hand rail down because it's not that pretty, and really not that stable either, so it doesn't really serve much of a purpose.  

Now for the really fun stuff!  My mom and I went to a local nursery and picked up some knockout roses! Theres' a chance that they won't get enough sun, but the owner seemed to think it was worth a try.  I've been told they're very low maintenance (perfect!) and I picked yellow ones.  My favorite color!   Here's my mom planting some.  

They're tiny right now, I'll just have to ask you to imagine them full grown and how lovely they will be.  The tag on the roses said this type is the only one that is fragrant and if you get really close they do smell lovely!  Hopefully when there are more of them you will be able to smell them without sticking your face in the plant.  

So we'll see where everything stands, but it's been a week and so far so good!  Nothing's dead yet! Yay!

Nope, not a tan line sadly, just incredibly dirty after mowing, weed eating, stump removing, and rose planting.  yuck.

Even though Thurs didn't do much of anything that day, she sure slept like she did.  You didn't think I would give you a post without a picture of Thursday, did you?