what a bloomin' mess

Termites. In my garden. Burrowing under my tulips. Building nests amongst the daffodils. Enjoying a picnic in the grass.

Inspired by our walk, I decided to attack the front yard yesterday. It is an unqualified mess, a bloomin' mess, since the lilacs and flowering quince and tulips and daffodils and grape hyacinth and camellias are out. The grass is a huge problem. I don't like lawns in general, and especially not ours, with its weedy, rough grass that spreads via root runners. It takes over flowerbeds, ground cover, everything. It took me several hours to do the small bed of tulips in the corner of our lot, where the sidewalk ends. The previous owners edged the beds with untreated scrap wood, which is now rotten and being eaten by nasty termites.

Everything in me screamed "rip out everything and Roundup the whole yard!" but I controlled myself. I made a promise to myself that I would wait a year to do a major overhaul of the landscaping, because I don't know what's there and what the sun is like yet. But those damn termites REALLY made me want to kill. So I did. Squashing and termite-killing insect powder all over the stack of wood and in the bed. So far, there hasn't been any sign of termites in/under our house (I dunno about the shed, though) and I want to keep it that way. Where did they come from? Can they migrate 30 feet across/under/through the lawn? Oregon, being wet and mild, has a termite problem, and I really don't want to make it a personal problem.

The sidewalk end bed being done, I focused my efforts on the lilac bed. As you can see from the pictures of the front yard, the landscaping is ugly and a complete afterthought. There are just a couple beds edging the sidewalk, and they're all filled with inappropriate plants. I particularly hate the lilac bed, since it has one too many lilacs in it, and they are scraggly and don't get enough sun, being blocked by the birch tree at one angle and the maple tree at another angle . The bed is made up of a flowering quince, which is a pretty hedge-like thicket (from which I previously removed several wild plum volunteers that were holding up the floppy quince branches -- doh!) when grown properly, and two mature lilacs next to each other, a white one and a purple one. They look lopsided and stupid, because the quince is on one end, and the lilac in the middle is only blooming and leaf-ing on the very top, plus they block our porch from the street view. I suppose the latter is ok, since I have two big, unblinking eyes in the picture windows in the living room and dining room, but it also reduces the curb appeal and makes the focus of the yard a overgrown, lopsided hedge. So I cut back the flowering quince to bush size, about 5 feet high, and started making plans to remove the center lilac. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it. I love lilacs, though, and will figure out something.


The next step is to do something with the roses that are inappropriately planted on the corner of the yard behind the quince. They've got to go. Sigh. I probably have more experience with roses than anything else, so it distresses me to see them in a shady location in a stupidly placed ugly bed. Bah.