Sometimes in the winter months as I close my eyes at night, I relax by doing some imaginary gardening. I picture my yard, lush and green. I dream of the new ways I will plant vegetables in the spring and how I will renovate the flowerbeds, dividing and adding new perennials.

For years I have dreamed of changing the grass along the street-side of the fence. It runs half the length of our property and is really only a small sliver of earth. Not only does it seem plain and dull, but the grass is forever creeping under the fence and into my garden beds on the other side. I hate that.

Many times in my mind’s eye, I have removed the sod and put in daylilies. Nothing else–just hardy, orange daylilies that will look nice but need almost no attention. A few years back, I even went so far as to put a few daylilies at one end. I had nowhere else to put them at the time and thought that it might inspire me to carry on and tackle the job. It didn’t.

Today, however, I decided it was time to make my dream come true. At 9:00, with everyone safely off to work and school, I set to removing the grass piece by piece. I used an edger to section off long strips and found that the grass came away without too much trouble, especially where the grass met the sidewalk. I piled the chunks on the lawn. Still, the clay was heavy and I decided that I would only work to halfway down the fence.

Once the grass was gone, and the stones deposited near one of our two newly-installed rainbarrels, I was ready to plant. Pat had already brought home some pots of daylilies rescued from the church parking lot where they had crept out into the asphalt, and I divided an enormous stand of them in the backyard. I used the extra soil from our vegetable beds, moving it by small wheelbarrow loads since the tire seemed to be a little flat. I gave all the plants a haircut, trimming off their bent leaves and hopefully helping them settle into their new home a little faster. It will take a while for the bed to fill in and look nice–although perhaps I will add some cedar mulch in the next few days to make it a little tidier.

I finished the last of the planting and swept the sidewalk at 1:00 (whew!). And that’s when it occurred to me: my dream was alot less work when I was tucked into bed on a cold winter night, far from any actual soil or daylilies. When I imagined the digging and pulling and planting, it didn’t make me sweaty or filthy (notice I am not in any of the photos?). I conveniently forgot how heavy the clay soil can be and how long that strip of grass really is.

I am glad that I decided to only do half of the job today–I will need a hot bath and some Advil as it is. The rest will have to wait for another day. Making dreams come true is hard work.