Upon my return from "sand country" I noticed a pitiful state of neglect in my Illinois garden. Yesterday, as I began to pull weeds, I became engulfed in a buzzing mass: mosquitos!

I seem to have forgotten about these needle-nosed summertime spoilers. With the rains our area received the past few weeks, the waterborne insect population has exploded. It was quite dry up north, and so we had (thankfully) neither ticks nor mosquitos to manage. Since preventative drenchings with 100% DEET didn't appeal to me, I put off my gardening for another day. Finally, the sight of my straggly yard disgusted me so much, I donned long pants (in 90-degree heat, mind you), a hat, and wore no perfumes or scented products (moisturizers, etc.) I have always heard that mosquitos "smell" sweat. True or not, I was sweating and did get a few nibbles, but overall I managed to finish most of the greenery manicuring without too many welts as a souveneir.

On another note, my husband spent the long weekend prepping and painting the exterior of our house and deck, which needed it desperatey. He's almost finsihed with the main house; the next dry weekend he'll tackle our oversized "shed" - most people would call it a garage but since most models of automobile do not fit inside it (although our old Jeep Wrangler did) "shed" is its legal designation.

We went from a dull beige with white trim and turquoise-green doors (it was like that when we bought it!) we are now in a more colonial/cottage/yankee palette of mid-tone greyish-blue, bright white trim and glossy black doors. With these changes, I now realize that the front yard landscaping - which consists of a berm with 5 arborvitae lined across it - is an ugly detraction from our cottage home. I told my husband it looked like a line of pickles standing on end in front of the house! He laughed, but agreed that it was an apt description.

I'm now researching a plan to put in minimal-maintenance plantings of varying heights and extended blooming times. I'm currently leaning toward tall ornamental grasses in back, "Royal Standard" hosta (blue-green leaves. w. white flowers) across the next row, and then various bushy perennial flowers and different colors that will manage in the dry soil in partial shade. I'm thinking of mums, coneflower, black-eyed susan, liriope, lilly of the valley, dragon's blood sedum...

I have to wait until both our bank account and the weather can support my vision.