Garden as Work in Progress

My cleaning woman told me that she and her mother would like to do my garden this year so I said yes. Ray the handyman has become too busy with his full-time job. So on Thursday, they arrived with plants. Fortunately, one of the last things Ray had done was winter cleanup so Ana cleaned my apartment while her elderly mother (and by "elderly" I mean 15 years older than me) planted.

They are not finished yet, but here's what it looks like, and I was happy to just sit outside today. It wasn't quite warm enough, but it was still pleasant.

This is the bleeding heart on top, and I believe the bottom is called New Guinea impatiens.

I wouldn't have taken the time to plant fully-bloomed daffodils and tulips -- I want things that LAST but this looked really pretty for a day or two. And I guess they'll come back up next year.

Marigolds and geraniums on the steps.

I don't know what these are on the steps on the other side. It is a flower as both have buds.

This is a little corner built-in brick planter. The bush and the ivy are old, and Mama cleaned up the ivy and made a space for these little plants -- not coleus, but pink and green leaves.

These are those giant (New Guinea?) impatiens.

How the steps look now.

This is one view from my garden. That wall is about 12 feet high. I was once at a party, on the terrace of that apartment building and it was very weird to look down into my garden. No nude sunbathing for me.

And finally, the ugliest part of my garden -- the prison camp look of concertina wire. But even this has a role... when I was first getting my home owner's insurance over the phone, I could hear the ca-ching of my premium going up when I mentioned the outdoor space. Then I mentioned the prison camp look and the concertina wire and he took back his ca-ching. What's funny is that an apartment building put that up to protect itself against me and other people who have gardens. Those shreds are plastic grocery bags which have taken years, literally, to be this shredded.