hedging our bets

or hedging our yard. either way, we're hedging this weekend!

scott and i went to Behnke Nurseries last night (which apparently just got a freaky looking new website) to pick out plants. Behnke's is the greatest nursery in the area. or maybe the greatest in the world. they have the best staff and the best selection of old classics and exotic varieties, and lots of regional plants. so anyway, we went and after a whirlwind tour of the shrubs and bushes... and after a lengthy discussion with one of the shrubbery professionals... we chose the japanese yew. i would link to a picture, but the camera is dead once again and none of the google image search results really look like what we got. so maybe i have the name wrong. but the important things are: the bushes were reasonably inexpensive so we could afford a slightly more mature plant to start with; they can be pruned into a thin hedge; they cap out at 7 or 8 feet; and they grown pretty durn fast. and the best part was when the shrubbery lady was walking around with us, making recommendations. she said something like, "well, you might consider a yew? now the yews are over here... no, wait, they were just here, i swear... now where have those yews gone?" and i had slap back my inner must-make-a-stupid-joke-at-all-times-gland which wanted to say "are you sure they aren't WANDERING YEWS? har har har." because, although the lady knows her plants, i wasn't sure if she would think of the PLANT called wandering jew, and think i was making some crazy antisemitic remark. but golly i wanted to say it. i still want to say it.

scott is working on saturday, so i'll do a little prep work and we'll do the big stuff on sunday. !! in the meantime, i need to find a place to rent a roto-tiller. the digging that happened during the Patio Adventure was enough to teach me that our yard is full of random crap suspended in a mix of hard clay and dirt. and that mixture is highly resistant to shoveling.

i am still hoping to make it up to the maryland sheep and wool festival on saturday, but those plans might be scrapped at the last minute. we'll see.

if i can dig up the camera battery charger over the weekend, i'll take pictures to document the mess. stay tuned.