Trying to stage a rescue

I have been working on my pots that I kept from the old house and planted quite a few plants in them for the deck. I had seen Ed Hume speak at a local popular nursery where he told us that pots that were hung on the streets in Vancouver, Canada contained over 35 plants. This inspired me to purchase more plants, however, with the hot spell, some drooped and one packet of plants is not salvageable I think. I didn't get them into the pots soon enough. So I am trying to rescue what I can. :( . My original plan for our yard at the new house was going to entail digging new flower beds and some serious plant purchasing and landscaping. I even contemplated having a vegetable garden in the back yard. I attended as many talks as I could at the local nurseries on the topic. Then I broke my ankle, so my plans were scaled back. I did plant quite a few rose plants, but that took me forever with my ankle and foot swelling. On Mother's Day my DH helped me get the majority of the rose plants in and I was able to put in about five more after that on my own. Our yard was basically a blank slate with a very minimal amount of plants in the yard.
At some point somebody had good sized dogs in the yard and there is going to major hole filling and leveling of the yard at some point. I don't think it will be this year. But at least we will have roses that were in for a year. We have some kind of tree outside the fence, but on our property that is pretty nice. It is at least as tall as our house, maybe taller. The tracks from dogs running along the fence is starting to grow grass, and the flower beds will eventually be part of that. I was determined not to pay someone to do it. So I will start to work on them again a little and I want to get some of the free compost that we can get from the County to start amending my flower beds.

I decided to make my grandneice a pair of long-legged bloomers for her to wear under her girly-girl dresses because I know she likes stuff like that. I found exactly what I was thinking of- McCalls M4505. I will be able to make our grand-daughter who is two a pair also at some point. The pattern was on sale at JoAnns for 1.99. My grand-neice turned three this year and she wants all princess dresses now.

Because I decided to sew a gift, I finished only one nine-patch block today. I still need to put the waistband on the bloomers, and the elastic on the legs so they will be poofy. But I am making progress on the blocks, which makes me unbelievably happy.