Weekend Boxwood

For Stephen's birthday (in late October), I bought him two Boxwood plants. I know it's not a conventional birthday gift but Stephen and I aren't your conventional couple. He loves Boxwood. Really loves it. It reminds him of when his family would go on vacation to Colonial Williamsburg when he was younger. He says the smell is "so classy."

Our front garden area, on the left side of our house, was so incredibly bare. When we first moved in, we didn't like the plants the previous owner chose and, thinking we were going to be really proactive with fixing things up in the beginning, we tore everything out (I'll post a "before" picture once I've had a chance to locate it-- it's on our old desktop). Needless to say, this is our first house so we weren't really prepared with the costs that go into fixing things up. So, for 3 or 4 years it remained this hideous area that was completely empty in the center-- save for a few hostas that would come up in the Spring and Summer and some random plant smack dab in the center, all by its lonesome. Our quandry was that in the Fall and Winter, when the hostas would die out, there was nothing there. So. Ugly. I wasn't gung-ho about getting the Boxwood at first (they sort of smelled like cat pee, contained in my car, as I drove them home), but outside where there's TONS of airflow they actually do smell good. Very earthy. And they look pretty dang good, too!

We loved the idea of finally having some evergreens to fill up the space so we went out and got three more. Now we have a total of five out front. Unfortunately, they're already dormant so they won't fill out the space until next Spring. But at least the twenty feet of empty space are finally filled with something. And now I have new motivation to plant some flowers in the Spring since they'll have quite a handsome backdrop.

This little guy is my favorite....

Isn't he handsome surrounded by fresh mulch?