Something kicked my ass into gear big time this week.

I’m like a man possesed.

I’m wielding a trowel like a ninja.

If there was such a thing as gardening yoga, I’d be the master. A yogi if you will.

Now if I had to make an uneducated guess, it is the fact that my garden is at the point where it is filling in beautifully and, I hope I don’t regret saying this out loud, it looks kind of great. I am thrilled with where things currently stand and I don’t feel the need to move a single plant. Newly planted bulbs from last Fall and newly acquired perennials from this Spring are thriving.

Who the hell am I?

After the mess that was the broken sump pump (and we are about 90% good to go for those keeping score at home) and the subsequent high from getting it fixed, I completed a garden inventory. This a very detailed review of the entire garden and can take hours. I take it very seriously as it provides my gardening direction for the foreseeable future.

Normally this inventory/audit results in a healthy sized color coordinated Excel spreadsheet that ultimately sends me over the edge realizing I’ll never get even 25% of it done. But not this time.

There will always be something to do in the garden, we all know that. But my current to-do list was now smaller than ever before. And I really was searching for items to add to the list. Either my standards had dropped precipitously, or I was finally doing something right.

After careful introspection over a West Coast IPA or five, I settled on “I’m kind of awesome”. Now this is subject to change before I hit “publish” on this post, but for now I am in self-congratulatory mode. But that doesn’t have me resting on my laurels (pun intended) by any means. Instead, I am determined to take care of every little detail so we can get this garden looking f’n stellar (f’n stellar > f’n awesome). The better it looks the more I want to make it look even better.

So I kid you not, I’ve been up early every morning this week ready to get something done out in the yard.         

And there is your proof people.

Yes 6:00 AM isn’t early for most of you, but I am not a morning person at all. I am a night owl. If I could garden in the middle of the night, I’d be all over it. My brain piques around 11:00 PM but then shuts down until about 10:00 AM.

I also realize that the clock could be at 6:00 PM in the pic above, but would I really go through the motions of taking this dumb selfie if I wasn’t trying to prove a point?

Further proof.

Damn it is peaceful this time of the morning. Oh you all knew that already? My only distraction was/is a rooster next door that howls consistently day and night. Does anyone know what that signifies? I find it funny … until it isn’t.

So I’ve been weeding like a champ each morning, relocating volunteer coneflowers and mountain mint to fill in gaps and just enjoying the time outdoors and the little garden oasis I’ve created. As I said before, this feeling won’t last and I’ll be back to my self deprecating ways soon, but for now, I like it. This is why I/we garden. In search of that oasis and the fun/struggle it takes to get there.

A few shots of the garden to take you into the weekend:

Astilbe ‘Amethyst’ surrounded by a lot of blue and purple.

I kind of like my Veronica (Speedwell).

Good mix of color, shape and texture.

One of a few blue Allium that just appeared.

I like Physocarpus (Ninebark) seedehads more than the flowers.

I love love love Ninebark ‘Amber Jubilee’.

Joe Pye Weed is fantastic even before the flowers arrive.

The buzzing of the bees is music to my ears.