Raking, and mowing, and laundry, oh my

Another weekend full of activity.  I did tons of raking and bagging in the backyard on Saturday.  This is what I left on my curb for pick-up tomorrow morning:

We also assembled the new lawn mower:

And the new garden cart:

You may recall how it looked before assembly:

I have to say, it was a huge pain in the neck to assemble, but it seems to be a great cart.  Very study and easy to navigate.

The seedlings I transplanted almost a month ago are coming along fine - you can see a few of them in the garden cart, above.  I have been hardening them off for the past week, bringing them in and out of the garage each day to soak in some sunlight.  I hope to transplant them next weekend.  Some will go in the side garden plot - but I also bought some containers today, where I'm planning to plant some of the herbs and maybe a couple of tomato and pepper plants.

My evergreen is still looking very sad:

I have applied the insecticide/fertilizer that the lady from the garden center recommended.  I hope it will work.

I decided my front stoop needed some sprucing up, so I bought a container and some plants from the garden center and made a little welcoming garden urn.  The plants I chose are supposed to attract hummingbirds and butterflies.

I forgot to mention this last week, but I bought these adorable little hose guards (or whatever they're called) in the shape of pine cones.  They work great, and look so much nicer than those plastic green things that the previous owners left:

Finally, I also did some indoor organizing today.  I have a tiny laundry area, with a stacking washer and dryer - really just a closet off the kitchen area.  Other than the appliances and a utility sink, it's just an empty closet, so we've been keeping our laundry detergent and an old hamper on the floor.  Not very satisfactory.  So I went onto amazon.com and bought a laundry cart (which I had to assemble):

And a laundry organizer with a bar to hang clothes that are too delicate for the dryer:

I can't tell you how exciting that is - up until now, we've been just hanging our delicates wherever they can fit on the closet doors or the bathroom door down the hall.  Now, we actually have a dedicated place to hang them.  I realize the fact that I'm excited about this makes me a huge dork.  Anyway, here's how it looks in combination:

 
No, it's not garden related, but, well, I wash a lot of garden-related clothes in there. And I'm quite proud of how it all came out.  Especially since I have such a small laundry space to work with and I ordered everything based on the measurements on-line, not knowing for sure how well it would fit.  I was particularly worried the cart might be too big.  But, fortunately, it all fits perfectly and I can wheel the cart in and out of the space easily if I need to.