Will planting turn to pain?

I've been so bored lately what with being so careful about my back that I did some gardening anyway this afternoon. I figure the doctor gave me a prescription for pain, so if my back seizes up, I'll take a pill. Aching right now, but believe me I will not hesitate to pop that pill if I need to.

Anyhoo, I bought 3 geraniums and a pot of 6 marigolds and wanted so badly to get them in the garden. They were starting to look a bit pathetic (see photo below) so I got down on my hands and knees and began the process. First, dig up the weeds and turn the soil, flick the worms out of my way (ICK!), place the plants equi-distant from each other, dig a hole, and cover them up with soil and a firm pat. The whole process probably took me a half an hour and believe me, between my back and the heat, that was plenty for today. I took a few photos of what's happening in the garden so far this season and hope you enjoy them. My garden could be so much nicer if I were able to do more, but bit by bit I'll get it all spruced up. First up is the rhododendrun which is right by my patio. Last year I really hacked it back and the first flowers are looking healthy and magnificent. Try to click to enlarge the photos, but usually they won't.

At the far end of the garden along the house, is a poppy plant that we think floated in on a seed when I had new topsoil put down a few years ago. At first I thought it was a prickly weed, but before I had time to get out to remove it, a flower appeared! So now I just keep it trimmed back and each year we get more and more flowers on it. Here you can see the end of one flower and six more buds on the bush.

Nearby the poppy are some lilies. The garden used to be prolific in lilies and I had to cut a lot of them out. They were just taking over everywhere. Because of our weather this spring, they are late in blooming. Here's the very first one of the season.

Here you can see a bit of the lily plant next to the other rhododendrun, which is redder than the one by the patio. Underneath the rhodo are English poppies that bloom all summer long.

Opposite the house and along the fence is a long garden starting with an azalea, blue cornflowers (see closeup below), and more English poppies. It was at the far end of this section where I put in the geraniums and marigolds.

Et voila! Here they are in their new home. If I'm sitting inside, I can see them straight out the patio windows and I think because they look so pretty, I just might get more and thin out the cornflowers so they can border the garden all the way along. If you look really closely, you can just make out one of my two irises that has some buds on it.

My feet and back feel much better lying on the chaise admiring our handiwork. We now wait to see if that aching turns into anything worse. Oh well, I'll just pop that old pill and wait until the pain passes. Hope you all had a wonderful weekend - sunny like ours was - and that you got everything done that you wanted to do.