This spring I have been grateful for the hard work of others – particularly for my mother-in-law Tina and also for myself, in the past.

Case in point:

See this?

That’s a bed of really ugly, weedy grass that used to exist between our driveway and our neighbors’. One day I just got sick and tired of constantly battling with it to keep it from eating our our asphalt. Plus it was ugly.  So I just started hacking at it. And after long hours of work (with help from Tina and Nik), we finally got all the grass out.  (It was a much bigger project than I’d counted on!)  Then, I removed several wheelbarrow loads of dirt in an attempt to make it relatively level and Tina and I transplanted in a bunch of perennials that came my way, for free mostly, from other gardeners.

And this year, I’m reaping the benefits of last year’s hard work. Plus Tina came this year, weeded the bed for me, and put down new mulch. So it wouldn’t look this good except for her hard work this year too!

I’m not sure the names of all the plants I have but I do know that I have coneflower (echinacea), bee balm, butterfly weed, black-eyed Susan, and irises. There is also cleome coming but it’s still quite small yet, along with couple other prolific self-seeders that are still very small yet. (Those are the masses of green you see along the edges.)

Does anyone know what the clump of pink flowers is at the bottom of the driveway? I bought just one small plant a couple years ago, don’t even remember transplanting it there last year, and now – yikes! I think I’m going to have to dig some out in order to keep them from taking over the world!