Lakeside Landscaping

I actually cringed just now when I opened the wedding planning spreadsheet. I also gasped when I counted weeks and realized that we're getting married 11 weeks from Saturday. And that we'll be spending two weekends in Utah hiking. And another weekend in Fort Benton for more Mullan Road stuff (I heard that snicker!). So really... I have 8 weekends to work on wedding stuff.

Does that have your attention? Because it has mine for sure!

The invitations have been ordered, although they'll still need to be perforated, the map printed and insterted, stamped, folded, stuffed into envelopes and mailed. I've got a phone date tonight with the friend who has offered to do our flowers. I've got a phone call into the restaurant where the reception is, and the family is busy working on lanscaping the lake place.

Let's talk about having a portion of your wedding at home... We decided okay I railroaded everyone into agreeding to have the cocktail hour and ceremony at my parents place. I've talked endlessly about how much I love Coeur d'Alene. But mom and dad haven't been exactly master gardners with their landscaping at the lake. It's a vacation house; the last thing they wanted to do was  prune bushes.

Dad's approach is much more tear it out. Mom's is to try to keep Mike from hurting himself/ spending too much money/ coming inside and declaring: "Sandi, you've got yourself a hell of a mess here."

His famous statement when he takes a simple chore too far and makes an expensive mess of it.

Anyway, back on subject. They started working on the landscaping in late February.

The Monday after my shower Mom and I worked on burning brush dad had been cutting down throughout the spring, which included a cherry tree that I tried (unsuccessfully) to get him to keep. Mike would be a good demolition contractor.

At one point I thought I'd hurry the process up and start both piles on fire. All that brush became ash in about two hours.

That did leave a lot to do though, to make a presentable (not gorgeous, lush or impeccable; just presentable) yard for the cocktail hour. This is what we had to work with as of mid-April:

 ... Nary a bloom in sight. Okay, that's not unusual for mid-April, for sure, but we're plannign on spicing it up a little!

Last weekend mom and dad took advantage of the warm weather to spread literally a half ton of dirt around in the yard. They filled in the fish pond mosquito farm, and tried to level out the grass a bit more too. They spread grass seed, and hopefully will be helped by some spring rain to get to a nice lush lawn by July.

(I'm sorry, I just got distracted by the shiny blue water in the upper right corner of this photo!)

I felt bad that I wasn't there helping them spread dirt.

Now that the lawn is sorta even, and will be watered through the beginning of July to stay green and inviting. No more trees will be cut down (right MIKE!?)

Over Memorial Day we'll plant petunias, ornamental grasses, perennials that require very little care, and maybe some daisies. Nothing huge, but enough to lighten up the all square all the time version of landscaping my dad favors. Hopefully by the time our guests see it, the lawn won't look like it's been neglected since they purchased it!