I've been workin' on the railroad, I mean backyard

I can't believe it has almost been a month since my last post. I've been working my fingers down to stubby little nubs, but it was worth all the effort for sure! The rehearsal dinner for my son and his fiance' was so fun and festive and now I have all those projects finished that I have been putting off. I even got my bathroom painted, and believe me, it really needed it!

My daughter took lots of pictures at the dinner, and I will post them when I get them. In the mean time, I took some pictures of the garden.

About a year ago I mentioned my backyard manhole. Now I have a nice gravel path from the bottom of my railroad tie stairs to my little retreat with the manhole cover floor.





And at the other end of the path I put in a retaining wall, made of recycled concrete chunks, and planted a little kitchen garden.



My friend, the plant rep, had the brilliant idea to spell out the happy couples' names in flowers and then she found an amazing deal on violas at a nursery in a neighboring town.





(Of course, they are spelled out side by side.)





I love this little flower, called "Vanilla Spoon", a variety of the "freeway daisy" because they are planted along California roads. Don't worry, I won't be putting in a freeway, even though I feel sort of like I've been working on a road crew!