Survival of the Fittest or Gardening Slacker Style

Part of today was spent in my back yard doing some much neglected gardening. Years ago when I first bought my house I was obsessed with turning my backyard into a paradise. That obsession quickly turned to disdain after discovering that my backyard used to be a parking lot with two layers of blacktop hiding under a thin layer of grass.
Fast forward a bunch of years and you have what I like to call a survival of the fittest garden. Many of the plants I started by seed years ago have managed to hang on and somehow (dare I say) thrive with complete neglect. That's my kind of garden!
Now my focus is on adding trees and cultivating the "natural" rabbit thicket we created in the center of the yard (part of which is shown in the above photo). Yes, I encourage rabbits in my backyard, you heard correctly. What started as tree and privet hedge trimmings lazily left in a pile for too long became a perfect refuge for bunnies. Over the past few years I have added to it and planted vines over it making it a shady and pretty darn swanky bunny thicket. They love it. Every Spring a new young bunny moves in and starts a family there. I watch them from an upstairs window like a freaky old shut-in who spies on her neighbors.

You would not believe what was going on on this tree. It was full of ladybugs being very unladylike. Let's just say that it was like the Playboy mansion of trees and not all ladybugs are ladies, if you know what I mean. Wink, wink. ;)