My Long-awaited Flower Bed....

So I have been dreaming of having a place to muck around in, to plant perennials and pull the odd weed or two. But with the way they build homes so close together nowadays, they leave you with limited space to accomplish the building of any flower-bed or garden. But this summer, once it finally arrived, brought with it hope that I would finally get a space to fill with luscious green foliage and scent-full blossoms!!!
And so the breaking of the ground began....

A deep trench needed to be dug first, then packed with a mixture of sand and gravel to eliminate the shifting of the rock down the road - or so I am told - I hope this is the case....

I had many ideas of what I wanted but after many trips to the rock depot, I settled on this slate look, as it went with the exterior of the home so well. So we began to lay the base layer of the wall...

Once the base was complete, the wall got built up, piece by piece, leaving a jagged modern look to the bed.
During the building, some rocks were glued to each other to for extra reinforcement.
This is what the bed looks like just prior to topsoil fill - the smaller areas still need to be filled in with smaller pieces of slate...

And this is what you see when driving up to the front of the house, from the road....

Will be taking more photos and updating as we go, but so far, I am pretty pleased! What are your thoughts?

Lilac Season...

So I planted these two lilac bushes in my back yard 4 years ago now. And every year, the odd branch blossoms and I have to refrain from lopping the branch off and taking it into my house to fill the air with this cherished smell.
But this year, both bushes had multiple blooms...so today, I could contain myself no longer...

I love this varietal, with both the purple and the white...

And a close up so true, you can almost smell it...

MWAH!