Spiffing up the yard

So our mail-order plants finally arrived.

I think all the lavendar is dead. We planted it anyhow in case something's still good about it. The rest of our plants were fine and have taken to the soil well. We were dubious about the bags of root balls we received (lupines and hostas), but several have already sent shoots out of the ground, so that was encouraging!

You can see the little white lilac tree that we also planted. That will take a long time to grow, but it's nice for a little height differentiation. A full-grown purple lilac already stands on the other side of our front walk. The sunflower seeds are really sprouting out of the ground and will need thinning soon. The cosmos and other wildflowers are coming through and will be nice for the summer as well.

We've planted everything and will be filling in the blank spots over time. I really want to get some mulch/ground cover in there as well to clean it up and help keep the weeding to a minimum. All other plants were for our balconies. The hanging strawberries and fuschias are settling in, and my hybrid tomatoes are going to be planted in a larger pot in the next day or so. They have been looking a little weak and we're worried about them. These guys are made for container gardens with low space. I was really looking forward to fresh, homegrown tomatoes this summer!

Check out the weeds Stefan pulled out of the front lawn! There are more than 30 dandelion plants in there! This from our tiny front lawn....and it's not even all of them!! Stefan has a special tool for uprooting them, but he also bought some weed killer for the front walk. Then Stefan cut the grass and I raked up the clippings - we just barely made it inside before the rain came!

Isn't this lawnmower completely ridiculous looking?! (so are Stefan's black socks, ha ha, you can see he just switched to shorts after work and went down to the garden) The mower looks like a children's toy (and functions as well as one too) with it's all-plastic body. And yes, it's ELECTRIC!! I had never heard of such a thing until we moved here. Can you (non-Germans) believe it?! Too funny! What a pain to use, too. The cord is always getting stuck on something, dragged through a flower bed, or too short to get to a corner unless you go back and unwind the extension cord some more. Of course you're always having to really pay attention that you don't run over the cord. Most of our neighbors have similar mowers - they're such sissy looking mowers! I'm sure there's some really good reason Germans have sissy mowers and I'm sure somebody will tell me it's to do with what's good for the environment or something. Still, a push-powered mower with a rotating blade does a better job than our sucker.