Welcome All Little Pastel Birdies

We've spent huge swaths of time neglecting the children while working on our yard. Sorry kids, we've found a new favorite hobby, the raising-small-children one was just too expensive. Now we've moved on to the only slightly less expensive gardening. Although we've spent many, many hours on it, for some reason we have very little to show for our efforts. (We've found this to be the case with child-rearing, too.) However, I do think the tiny portion of mud between the wall of the shed and the retaining wall is looking mighty cute. Here's how it was:
And here's how it is today:
We've planted a couple butterfly bushes, siskiyou, tiny ground coverings of various ilks to see which one we like the best and a lot of mulch. I would really like it if the mulch would grow and spread... Below the retaining wall, where there are still great hunks of bumpy concrete carelessly left by the makers of said wall and the patio, we've planted the beginnings of our herb garden. Rosemary, mint, parsley, sage and basil. Oh, and a rose bush for Kate, who earned it by being very well behaved at Lowes. Sarah was also very good at Lowes but didn't give a rat's ass about getting some stupid plant. Now we know.
The bird houses were the girls' Christmas gifts from Uncle Steve and Aunt Jo Jo last Christmas. We've lacked a good spot for them until now. The wall seemed to be begging for them. Hopefully, gaging the rapid growth of butterfly bushes below, some nice bird families will move in. I'll keep you posted, of course.