change, the only constant...

As good old Heraclitus once mentioned (probably as he came in and found that his wife had rearranged the living room) "Change is the only constant in life."
Well, the times, they are a changin' and so is my garden. We have a problem of living on a large clay pad. It extends for miles and so my step father informed me makes this area good for farming. Crops may like that, but standing water in the yard every winter isn't my idea of a good time. Most of it doesn't stand around for long as it can all accumulate under our house or onto the back porch (its one of those special ones that don't slope out but in towards the house so that during a downpour, we can store extra water there!). To fix this, the man who knows about those sort of things installed some pipes holy and not so holy (or as a real person might call them solid and perforated) and a few catch basins. This pipe ran along the driveway which was occupied already by our day lilies which bordered our garden.
A small note here, if you are going to border a garden with day lilies, don't. They grow very fast and your children will not be able to follow you into the garden and will find the ones that are about to bloom and step on those breaking the stems, then fall and start crying. Everyone loses.
So back to the changin' times. We dug up all of the lilies and spread the love. The front yard got a few clumps, the back pathway got a border and the rose garden received everything else left over.

a bad "before" picture, but you can see the overgrown lilies on the left side of the picture

Here is what it looks like now. lots less tripping and easier access.

Back pathway

back of the rose garden

Last but not least, here is the clematis we planted on the back path arbor. I didn't expect them to bloom, but sure don't mind. The yellow roses are blooming, but are forgetting to climb. Hopefully they'll remember soon.

Here is the poppy garden. It doesn't look like much, but they are coming on strong and should have about 3x the blooms that are there now in the next few weeks.