The Beginning

Though today is not technically the beginning of my efforts to reinvent my yard, it is the beginning of my exploration into the photo-journalistic approach to tracking the changes.
I have always (tried) to keep a written record of my yards. When I am making changes, what I am planting and where, and to some extent how well things are doing. But it does not satisfy me. I am very visual, and dont take any pleasure in writing down the words of what I have done on a lined piece of paper.  But I take a lot of pleasure in taking pictures! So, I got the idea to take pictures of what I am doing. Both before and after, then I also get a very visual reminder of the changes that I have made. The next step is to organize these pictures in a way that I can not only see the progress, but also make notes, and perhaps see the bigger "before and after" effects. I tried several things, then remembered that back in college I had a blog that I used to track what I was up to, and I decided to give it a try again.
Of course, an added benefit is that I can share my progress with everyone!! Whether they like it or not :)
I have always taken a lot of pride in my garden, and this one in particular has been a lot of work. The previous tenants did nothing to maintain the garden beds, so they were overgrown with grass, the few bushes and flowers left were struggling to survive and looked miserable. So I have set out to reinvent the yard, refresh the existing garden beds, and maybe even create new ones.  I have discovered tiny sprigs of rose bushes that I am lovingly cultivating into what I hope will become regal bushes.
I am going to start at the beginning of when I began taking pictures (which was only in June), and will eventually catch up to the present.
Though I have no real "before" pictures of the yard (*sigh*) I do have some that show some of the progress that I have made, and will continue to snap more.

 

one of the roses I discovered - one year ago it was a tiny one-inch twig with a single leaf that was struggling to breathe in a bed of grasses. Now it has overcome its obstacle and blossomed!!