Obsessive?

Forgive me for not posting for a while, but between the trip to charleston and SPRING, I've been pretty busy!  I don't have much to say about Charleston - it was great - except that being the good Olympus girl that I am I brought THREE cameras, but ended up only taking about ten photos!  And most of those stink.  I just can't keep up with all the artistic folks on flicker, you'll just have to squint your eyes and figure out what that blurry thing is!

Well, it is Spring, and so begins the annual garden obsession.  Oh, yes, I did all the normal things...swept the driveway when the ice melted (with a little help from our ice breaking obsession --- like its not going to eventually melt on its own?  We have to shovel and break for days and weeks- but that is the subject for another post - maybe next year).  I raked all the stuff up from the grass (where does it come from?) used the blower to take care of the leaves I didn't rake up last spring, raked the garden, planted pansies in the window box and planted left over bulbs.  At that point were are probably getting into the abnormal, because unless you plant more than ten thousand bulbs in the fall you probably don't have too many left over.  So here we go.

Its not enough to take care of several estates, several large properties and more than enough regular homes - I have to plant lots of gardens at home to take care of on weekends.  Now that the carpenters etc are done trampling, running over and generally ruining anything I try to do outside (the inside looks great though, boys!) I need to get planting.  Where to start though?  When I am planning for someone else's property I usually make a complete plan, and then since it really is THEIRS, I let them decide how to prioritize.  

At our house, do we start by moving the hot tub (no, its not fixed yet, trish) and putting in a patio?  I have a great idea for that if I can figure out how to post a sketch of it, it includes a pergola, stone patio, low stone walls.  

Or should we start with the sledding hill which is great in the winter but a hill o'weeds in the summer.  My idea for that is to have stone steps down the middle (which the kids assure me they can still sled down) and a retaining wall made of the boulders from the "rock fort".  That solves two problems at one time because if the rock fort becomes a beautiful rock wall we could pretty up our beautiful birch tree.

Clean up the front yard anyone?  plant ground covers, clean out grape vine and raspberry (it sounds pretty but we all know its not.)

Take down the spruce in the side yard?  make a garden over there?  plant a row of lilac?

Oh its all too much.  too many ideas, not enough spring!