Garden Wars: Revenge of the Roses

 You may remember the great rivalry that Bo & Chicken have had over their vegetable gardens.  The previous two years of garden wars have been filled with strategies, blisters, and jalapenos... lots and lots of jalapenos.

Now that Bo has moved to the city, 

and both Chicken and Bo live together. . . 

they've decided that this year's garden war will be fought as a team! 

One for all and all for one!

We've decided to get started with the flower beds and work our way to the garden.  Now there's a few things you need to know about Bo's new yard...

1. It has a crap-ton of flower beds.  Seriously.  No one else on the entire block has a single flower bed, and we have a total of 12 flower beds and gardens.  

2.  The yard is huge!  Not anywhere close the size of her previous yard, but still it's huge.

3.  For some $%^#&@*! reason every single leaf in a 10 mile radius finds itself into one of those dozen flower beds and gardens.  I can not even tell you how angry I am over this.  We both spent hours in September and later in November raking up these rouge leaves and yet this spring. . . they were back!!

That being said, here are some before pictures...

Despite the fact that we have completely different styles when it comes to landscaping and gardening. . .

 And drastically different thoughts about wildlife. . .

Well, despite all of those reasons and more, we were able to work extremely well together.  

We were determined to make our yard shine like the top of the Chrysler building.  

Well, basically that. . . but in a green nature-y way.  

Any who. . . it took 2 days, 5 trips to Lowe's, 2 trips to Garden Ridge, 32 bags of mulch, 4 bags of dirt, 6 piles of sticks/ brush, and 50+ bags of leaves, old mulch, and here are the results.  

(P.S.  I threw in some inside photos too 

because I did some spring decorating inside too.)

Our new sunny bird bath!  

Lowe's accidentally gave me a box that had 2 in it when I only wanted 1

 (and paid for 1).

When I returned the other one, I thought I'd get an "Oh, thank you,"  

since it was a $40 bird bath and would have

been a bad day when they took inventory and found it missing.  

But, no. 

 Instead the lady was more concerned about 

finding out who gave me the box so she could punish them.  

Really.  

Like working retail isn't enough of a punishment,

and I should know (I worked at Lowe's while I was in college!  

You're talking to the Employee of the year here.)

Karma will come back on her someday.  

But, 

I couldn't remember who had brought out the box for me, 

so she had no one to punish.  

For shame (insert winking face here).

The picture to the left may not look like much, 

but it took for #$%&%*ing ever!

Plus, cars kept coming down the alley, 

so my life was slightly in danger the entire time. 

 I also kept getting attacked by a rose bush.

And I was a source of entertainment for a

little girl who kept riding her three-wheel

motorcycle closer and closer, because

her and I were the only 2 active

members in my neighborhood, seriously.

Good Morning Daffodils!

Me-wow!  That is one cool cat!

This may look like another happy flower bed, but it's not.  

That rose you see in the right picture (on the left side of it), 

yeah that rose, 

I've nicknamed it Voldemort 

a.k.a the flower that will not be named. 

I swear, whoever came up with the idea that giving your sweetie pie a rose, 

must have originally thought it up as some kind of revenge 

because those things are horrid!  

I ended up getting poked, scratched, and basically attacked by that thing. 

 I don't know how, but I found a way to get injured by nearly every thorn on it.  

Later, 

when I was passed out on the couch from exhaustion, 

I noticed that my stomach really hurt, 

along with every other part of my body.  

Upon closer examination,

 I had a part of the rose bush caught up in my shirt 

and it had scratched the ever loving hell 

out of my stomach, making it exceeding painful 

to wear clothes for about three days.  

Every time I pass the rose bush I still give it the eye.  

One day rose bush, one day, I will have my revenge!

The trees have buds!  Spring is actually here people!  

Full of seed and waiting for some feathery friends!

Ahhhhh, spring!  My favorite time of year.  

Though, I honestly have to say, this was not my favorite spring cleaning.  

Plus, we only finished the front and side yard.  

The biggest challenge of all is yet to come.

Our next challenge. . . the backyard!  

God help us all.