I love getting dirty!!!

J is in the midst of working on our kitchen and so in order to stay out of his way (until he asks me for help), I decided I would spend my time outside this weekend.  It's finally warm and I think spring is officially here, so hopefully there won't be anymore hard freezes to ruin my weekend work.

I spent my entire Saturday digging out the ridiculously overgrown butterfly bush that was dying last year and that I cut down to a bunch of stumps.  I'm sure that at one time, the butterfly bush was wonderful - I am a HUGE fan of butterfly bushes, but no one took care of ours, so I'm pretty sure it sat in the back for 10 years before we bought the house, and just got out of control.  It took me about 3 hours of digging to get the roots out.  Here's what's left of it... in our fire pit...

I was sure that I wouldn't be able to move today, but miraculously I woke up and felt pretty good, so I decided to head out and get some stuff to plant.  On Saturday, I went to the store and while I was there, found great bulbs.  I ended up getting one for a peony bush (state flower of Indiana) and one for an elephant ear plant that will be used to spruce up our front porch.  I planted them today but don't have pictures of those to show you... they just look like dirt right now.

I also went to Lowe's and got some plants.  A couple for the back where I ripped out the butterfly bush and a couple for the front of the house.  Almost all the plants I got are perennials, but I did end up getting some annuals for my flower pot tower.  The perennials are supposed to get bigger (obviously) and the ones in the back are supposed to spread out, so I started with just a few to see how they filled in and I'll get more if I need to.

Here's what I added to the front:

I know - it doesn't look like much right now... just wait

And here is the back:

I also got some Lemon Grass seed that I planted in the back.  I have a few more packets that I'm going to plant around our deck.  Lemon Grass is as low maintenance as it gets, it smells great and it keep mosquitoes and wasps away, which is great with our new deck and our fire pit out back.  Again - no pictures of this... it's just dirt for now.

I'm really looking forward to stuff popping up - I'm so impatient with things like this.  Luckily, I do have another project to tackle next week while J continues on the floor - I have to get rid of this guy

If he starts to grow again, his vines will take over the world - we used to have vines all over (and under) our deck and up the side of the house - we finally got rid of them and I'm determined to keep them away.
What did you do this weekend??