Back Yard

So, we have finally gotten the pool liner installed. Between the snow, freezing temperatures, rain, and the wrong liner sent by the manufacturer the pool has been a swamp, literally, since last summer. Looking out in the back yard in our swamp and dug up yard--from the one-year-old chocolate lab--has been quite depressing for a long time.

It's now spring time, and it's time to plant flowers and other plants. Unfortunately, both Chip and I have not brown thumbs but instead black thumbs. We look at a flower or plant and it seems to die. We water the plants, we feed the plants, and yet they still wither and die. That's even more depressing because everyone else on the block has started planting beautiful, colorful flowers in celebration of spring, and our front and back yards are green, but not colorful with flowers. At least the front yard has a pink Azalea bush that is bursting with flowers, but as for the back yard there is not much I can say.

With the black thumb in mind, I am starting to research easy-maintenance or no-maintenance plants and flowers. I will say, one flower I didn't kill was a hedge rose. I planted a few when we lived in Tuscaloosa. The roses were beautiful and didn't die! I am hoping to find some hardy hedge roses to plant along the eye-sore-chain-link fence that encloses our back yard. Chip has talked about painting the fence black, hoping it would make it "blend in" to the yard better, but the chore sounds like a lot of work--especially when you have to spray the fence with Rustolum and then paint with black oil paint.