The gardens in the front yard have been a trabajo en progreso (work-in-progress). In fact, they STILL are in progress! When we first arrived to Spain and picked our house, there wasn't much to the front yard! However, in a way, we were grateful there were no gardens dug by the previous occupants. This allowed us to design and dig our own gardens wherever we wanted them! Yeah, it's sort of a silly investment since we'll be leaving in a few years, but I just LOVE gardens and love gardening. Thus: I give you stage two:
Plants aren't cheap, so I started with just a few basics. My gardener was nice enough to dig the gardens and plant most of the plants for me. He also added in a few plants of his own that he brought by. The daisies (for example). How nice! Well, I thought the daisies were a great idea at first, but little did I know that they were drought-tolerant and would THRIVE into a giant bushy wall of daisy-ness. This pic was taken shortly after the daisies went in, but within a month, you couldn't even SEE the rest of the garden! My baby hibiscus (believe it or not, they are in that garden) were being EATEN by the ferocious daisies. Also, within a month from these stage two photos, half of my marigolds and other cute flowers circling the bush were looking a little sparse and brown! Grrrrr. Let me please add that on my daily "to-do-list" is watering the gardens!!! Every night, I stand out front with a hose, (probably being watched by my neighbors who are thinking "why the hell is she watering those dead flowers") giving my thirsty gardens love... and still... crap. They looked like crap. OH but not the daisies. The wall of daisies was doing just GRRRREAT. Damn daisies.
SO yesterday, I did what I vowed I wouldn't do: put more money into gardens. That's right. I took a trip to my favorite store, El Lago, and got sucked into the usual black hole of spending. ("Eh, what's another Euro!?"...as I drop my 8th cactus into the cart.) I will note, however, that this trip was not without a lot of thought and planning. I did some research online and officially decided that I would stop trying to grow a New England garden while living in Spain. SO, after much anticipation, I give you my drought-tolerant-easy to maintain-Spanish-jardin!
You can finally see my beautiful hibiscus again, and I will NOT be letting my jardinero bring daisies any where NEAR them! As previously mentioned, I purchased a sh*tload of baby cacti. Did I ever tell you I LOVE cacti? MAN I love cacti. (Hard to see, but they are in there! Zoom in by clicking on the picture)
Anyway, I am excited to see how they do living outside and how fast/slow each type grows. Seriously, if I can't grow a cactus, I give up. Anyway, I'll be taking another picture before we leave in 2 1/2 years to see how much they've changed.Oh, and yeah, at this time, the other garden remains relatively unchanged. Took a few dead plants out, put a few others in. If you find yourself bored, do a little rain dance for my marigolds... er... something... ;)
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