Bye, Bye Cactus

When we moved into our house we had a big beautiful cactus in our front yard,  I say beautiful because at the time it was blooming and the flowers on it were pretty.  As the flowers died and we looked at I realized it was ugly, the pads were very unhealthy looking. And besides who really wants a cactus in their yard? So we decided to get rid of it.  But how do you dig up a poky plant that is 5 feet in diameter without destroying the rocks work around it?  Well, you cut it apart one pad at a time, at least that is how we did it.  It was just a little each week because the garbage can quickly filled up and became extraordinarily heavy.  Do you have any idea how heavy a prickly pear pad is?  Especially the ones the size of a dinner plate?

We were grateful the sprinkler system extended to that spot so we could easily plant something in its place.  The cactus has been gone for a while now, leaving a very bare spot in the yard.  We have looked at all sorts of plants to find one to go in the empty spot but hadn't found one until last Saturday.  So for our Family Home Evening activity this past Monday we  Paul, John and Sarah planted a little Easter Emu Bush.

It was so cute to see Sarah run to find her shovel as Paul was getting his.  She was so excited to help.  Paul would scoop a shovel full of dirt into the wheel barrel and Sarah would do the same.

John's idea of helping was sifting through the dirt in the wheel barrel to find rocks.  He wanted to put them in our bucket of water, actually he wanted to fill the bucket of water totally full with rocks.  We kept giving him other jobs to do to keep our watering water rock free.

As always Paul was very patient with his two young gardeners by his side, behind him and sometimes under his feet.

Once the bush was in place, had filled the hole in with dirt and smoothed out the rocks I asked John what we needed to do next?  Sarah answered for him, "It needs water."  She is a very observant little lady.  Sarah has gone out several times this week to check and see how our bush is growing.  So cute to watch. . .

It was a beautiful evening to be outside together.  This is our first "gardening" attempt in Kingman, we are hoping all goes well and our pretty little bush flourishes in its new home.