My sister Diane stopped by the house this morning and continued her hard labor at making our plot of clay and construction debris into something that would actually grow green plants, some flowering.

I still don't know how this all started. I think she's just really into gardening and has been doing it both their house in the city and the house up in Michigan. She's befriended the local landscaper up in Michigan, so she must be getting tips and has just really found something she just likes to do.

On top of that, the idea that we have property that has absolutely no plants on it (well, no living plants on it), must have sent her over the edge, I guess.

I just can't remember Diane ever saying that she was going to step-in and takeover our sad situation. But she has. And I'm not going to stop her.

I mean, let's face it. Between Carol and I, we don't have any interest at all in gardens. Carol's got that whole bee-phobia thing, so flowing plants were always out, and even though we had a landscape architect start us down a path at least 10 years ago, we never really kept up with it. That, and certain areas in front of the house that must have had issues with the soil, just made anything we planted in certain areas just die.

So, even though I've been talking about this in recent weeks in the first person, Diane's been busting her butt out there trying to get the soil right and trying to come up with ideas that fit our lifestyle (i.e., low or no maintenance). Planting doesn't appear to be too much of a problem - it's trying to prep the soil that sucks. Our soil is REALLY bad, and the closer you get to the house, the more construction debris and rocks you find, embedded in that thick clay. It takes a lot of work getting the crap out of there, replacing the soil with something good, adding peat where needed.

So, she was back out there today (I could tell because I could see her SUV in our driveway through our WeatherCam). I knew when she got there and I knew when she left. And - now that I've worked alongside her - I know that she really doesn't take breaks so she was out there digging planting and transplanting today.

Sure enough, when I got home, I saw what the next phase was - more hostas and daylillies, as well as some Black-Eyed Susan's. She's got all kinds of hostas, one that actually flowers (which I didn't know).Then in the really big effort, she transplanted a pretty sad burning bush from the front of our house to a spot near where the yews sat only yesterday, along the side of the house. That's not where she wanted to go - she had a spot all picked-out next to the garage, but as she started digging there, she just hit a tangle of roots from a nearby ash tree... not to mention being really close to the gas line going to the gas meter on the outside of the garage.

TRANSPLANTING BUSHES SUCKS. I know - I did it when we transplanted the two yews to the side of the house from the front of the house about 10 years ago. (I think it was longer). I don't know how she did it by herself.

She's come up with some great, simple ideas that seem to work... except for those transplanted hostas that aren't dying but aren't exactly flourishing either. I'll keep watering and we'll wait until next year to figure out what their condition really is.

All of this writing is just to make sure that I say Thanks to my kid sister. I sort of don't know why you're taking your precious time to do it, but do you realize how much we appreciate it? The whole front looks a lot better than, well, ever I guess. I like it better than what the landscaper did years ago. It fits our lifestyle better. It make the place a bit more inviting.

You put in an awful lot of labor and I have to honor that work with my Zen Watering to make sure that it lives on. I just have to remember to do that, since I've never really done it before.

Thank you for taking your precious time and driving all the way out to our house to toil in the soil and making our place look better.