A Work In Progress

If I have learned one thing owning a house, it's that nothing is ever finished. There's alway something that needs to be done. For example, I don't have anything on the walls in the master bedroom. I have a painting sitting on the ground that has been waiting to be put up since I moved in. We won't talk about the cloffice that is currently the room for things with no home yet. Right now, we're going to talk about the yard. 

First of all, yard work is not for the weak of heart.  The girl who lived in the house before me is a florist, so I thought awesome, I bet there are lots of great plants and after whatever she takes with her, the beds will have great bones for me to build on. I. Was. Wrong. The whole front bed was full of English Ivy. I don't know if you have any experience getting rid of that, but if so I feel all of your pain. 

I MEAN LOOK AT THAT. When I first moved in, I spent an entire day pulling that shit up. We took a CHAINSAW. We hooked it to my step-dad's truck with chain and pulled it away. It was awful. We managed to get most of it, discovering potted plants and decorative step stones and all sorts of treasures. Also, please note the Rose of Sharon back there taking the life out of that hemlock tree. 

After an entire day of pulling and chainsawing we managed to get it to look like this. I'll have you know, that no matter how concentrated the Roundup was, it didn't do anything. I still have nightmares about that stuff growing into my house and trapping me forever. Anyways, over the summer I put out about a million bales of pinestraw, hoping that would at least cover a little bit of it. 

Then, if we're being honest, I completely pretended the problem didn't exist for about six months. This past weekend I decided I wanted to get the yard under control before the spring really got rockin' and rolling. Of course I had to pull all of the leaves and nonsense out of this bed and the one on the other side of the house (ps. if raking leaves doesn't give me Victoria Secret model abs, nothing will) I pulled some more of the ivy up, planted a rose bush, some bulbs, and made plans for a few more rose bushes the next time I go to Lowes or Home Depot. That took a WHOLE DAY. You know why? Because there was more`ivy to be pulled. I cannot. 

I know in a few weeks this will be full of color, so I just have to hold on for a little while longer. Do you have any gardening tips for me? A cure for English Ivy perhaps?