Last year I tentatively bought a few plants at the local Lowes: the selection wasn’t very good but I knew where to find them, unlike a local gardening center. This year, I’m going for broke on my gardener status. I ordered seeds for our vegetable garden and for some flowering perennials/shrubs.

This is my first time starting plants from seed but that’s pretty much the only thing that’s going to fit into the budget if I want to get some flowers in around here. This year I mostly stuck to a selection of taller perennials to place along the edge of the property and in front of the house. These are all heat/drought resilient varieties, so hopefully they’ll establish while we have a little rain this spring and make it without any extra watering because, quite frankly, we don’t really have the water to spare down here in the south.

While the seeds are within my budget, the mulch and soil conditioners are going to put me over. I tried so hard, but maybe we should just get a lot of the major projects out of the way this year: graveling the north side of the house and driveway (thus extending parking area into a dead zone part of the yard), putting in a walkway to the deck, and installing a fence. I already have someone working up a fence quote for us, so we’ll see what happens.

I really want a pretty yard this year, though. >.>