Sunday, February 23, 2014

completing the compound

and another check on the list......

See that roll of fencing back there? It's hopefully going up today. This last little bit will make the whole back yard completely fenced. The first time ever that we've had a completely fenced back yard. It will hopefully do a couple of things......keep the dogs in, and the DEER out. The first one has a pretty high probability, the second one may be a pipe dream, since those beggars can jump up to 8 feet.   We'll see.......


In any case, it's nice to have that little item off the list.....moving on to the next one which will be getting the canopy off the truck (apparently much harder than it seems), and getting some more dirt, mulch, and misc. garden fillers. I also want to finish the pump house, paint it, and add the solar panels and pump so that we can water the garden this summer with the cistern, the way we intended.

In happy news......the crocus are up and out, and the daffodils are doing great......I got caught up planting yesterday, so I'm ready to stockpile some more.....
There's a lot of promise out there...



Sunday, February 16, 2014

Rain, rain, go AWAY!!!

It's just been raining like mad here, like, boat building rain.....I think I heard on the news that we'll get somewhere between 6 and 12 inches, just this week!

Needless to say, when you add the 50 mph winds, there's not much happening around here. Everything is living in a puddle, and I can hardly wait to see what survives.

My spring fever has not retreated a bit, though......this week at the nursery brought a new tree peony, some bare root grapes, a half price daylily, some checkered lilies, and a couple of packages of bulbs for half price.

The bare root stuff is starting to arrive at the nurseries, so I've been on the lookout.....bare  root plants are a great deal if you can get them into the ground fast enough. In a couple of years, they're just as big as anything else, and just as nice, for about a quarter of the price.

This week.......the hunt for new stuff continues, and, if it STOPS RAINING, I'll go out and plant what I've got stacked up in the garage.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

This ALWAYS happens, ALWAYS

We go to the flower show.....come home with a painful case of spring fever, and it SNOWS. REALLY? Did ya HAVE to do that???
 
 
The good news is, it'll be gone by this afternoon. The bad....winter is just not quite over.

We did go to the flower show this week, though, lots of ideas, lots of fun, and a bit of a haul.....



My goodies include.....tow daylilies, both "chocolate", a mystery peony, an iris called "lion king", a chocolate penstemon, a mouse tail plant and some seeds. I could have done more damage, but it was just getting WAY too crowded....and the year is young....Can't plant anything yet (see above).

There were also a couple of store bought scores......a hellebore "merlin" out of the clearance rack, some green-eyed narcissus that are pretty cool, from Costco, Daylily "bella Lugosi", another bright orange one, and some pink and white oriental lilies, from the bulb sale at fred meyer, a pure white peony "Shirley temple", and some funky gladiolas. They're all cooling their heels in the garage right now, waiting for the big melt off, which should happen today.

This week, it's supposed to rain, although I might go out between showers to plant what I've gotten so far. Don't want to get behind, ya know.......

Sunday, February 2, 2014

It's good to know the view finally changed.

So, a year ago, we were sitting here in a pile of mud....waiting......for the "post construction soil amendment" and then the landscapers.....it looked like this.....


 
It took another 2 months for the landscapers to show up, and then it looked like this.....

Although we didn't win the ugliest backyard contest (I thought we'd be a shoe-in), we have made some progress......today it looks like this......


We had to let the weeds grow in the back over the winter to keep the dirt in place. This summer will be the year of the backyard. We have multiple projects - thankfully most of them are on the smaller side, and hopefully, we've managed to frustrate the deer. There's plenty of food for them anywhere else!
 
This week FLOWER SHOW! FLOWER SHOW! FLOWER SHOW! Can you tell I'm a bit excited.? Last year, I couldn't really buy anything because we just didn't know when it could get planted. This year is another story. I've been saving my pennies, and drooling over websites for a couple of months now. We'll just see how this works out. My plan is to get cool things that I can't get locally, or I would have to mail order. No sense buying something I can find at home depot later in the season.
There's usually a really good assortment of lilies, peonies, and bare root perennials there, some of them REALLY cool, some really expensive, and some even on sale. It's really my goal to purchase very few plants at full price. Sometimes you just have to, though.
 
Speaking of sale.....this week home depot had a bunch of shrubs for half price. We scored a Japanese skimmia (very fragrant), and two peiris japonica (hummingbird heaven) for $3 each. I also found the new bulbs and bought 5 landini lilies (black), paid full price for them, though.
 
Next week, FLOWER SHOW, and an appointment with another insurance adjuster for the floors. This time she's bringing a flooring installer with her. Hopefully we'll get some resolution.