Spring has truly sprung over the past week in mid-Michigan, and the shade garden I expanded in the back yard last year is beginning to bloom…

I’ve been busy outside destroying and covering up my neighbor’s sidelot (with his permission) because I’m tired of looking at the mess of English ivy, poison ivy, weeds, dead leaves, weed trees, and trash out my dining room window.

Now it has been mowed, poisoned, shrouded in black plastic, and covered over with mulch.

Over the next year or so it should suffocate.

Then the mulch can be raked back, the plastic can be removed, and the remaining mulch and dead matter underneath can be worked into the soil.

At that point, it should be ready to sustain something beautiful and/or useful.

In the meantime, I’m on the lookout for some cheap or free pots and will try to stage a nice array of containers full of flowers on top of the mulch.

Two days after that big project I am still sore from moving edgers, swinging an ax, and shoveling and dumping and spreading mulch.

But the view is much improved.