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...

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.

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.......

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.

taking it easy today

Yesterday was a beautiful sunny day and I spent it painting....and painting.....and painting.
I know it doesn't look like much, but it's the first coat of primer (there's only going to be one). The next step will be do it all over again with the same green that's the house color. One more thing (halfway) off the list.

When the paint job is done, we'll root out the sun and moon collection and put them all up. It's not happening today, that's for sure. After a whole day up and down the ladder, I think I need a nap.

Today, we're planting these guys.....

two bare root trees, a combo plum, and a combo pear, both dwarf. They'll go in the back where, hopefully, they'll be a bit protected from the deer, since the bulk of the fence is done. I plan on planting the rest of my goodies today and maybe doing a bit of weeding, just for fun.

It's coming along....spring is springing, the garden show is in 2 weeks, and things are popping up all over. It's fun to go out and clean up, only to see the tiniest bits of peonies, bleeding hearts, daffodils and other perennials starting to grow. Makes me think it's going to work out....

finishing the compound....

Since I was MIA last week, there are a couple of things to catch up on......

During our Christmas/new year's break, we made a trip to home depot, just to "look and price" fencing and gates. We were pleasantly surprised to find a couple of gate options that would work perfectly to finish our back yard, and they weren't too expensive. The problem was, they just had one of each. So we decided to bite the bullet, jump in the truck and just go get them. That morphed into a "few" posts and some parts, and now we're ready to cross off a big "honey do" from our list.....finishing the front part of the fence.

This makes me pretty happy because it means the deer might be slowed down a bit when coming into the back yard. Note: "might be slowed down". Hopefully, they'll just move on to greener grass somewhere else and quit eating our poor trees.

We're now calling it "the compound".

 

That last open bit will be done today (had to go buy more fencing). It will be nice to be able to let the doggies out - supervised, of course - to hang on the bit of lawn this summer.  Where the green chair is will be the chicken coop. As you can see, we still have some things to do, but this is a big step.

 

There's only one more section of fence that needs to be done in the back, about 50' more, and we will be completely confined. Good for doggies, bad for deer. TAKE THAT!!

 

In plant news......my sister and I attended a Hellebore workshop yesterday at a local nursery. It was really informative and fun and I learned that you practically can't kill them. I found one I've been looking for, called onyx odyssesy (a double black), and then came home and went to another nursery and found a couple more. One was discounted 40percent off (my kind of plant), it's white, and one was "lady in red". According to the hellebore gal that gave the talk, it's the "must have" plant this year, and in short supply, You can see why....

That bloom is a good 3" across. It's really stunning.

 

The clearance rack also yielded some fun last week.....a giant clematis "nelly moser", gorgeous white and pink 6" blooms (later), a heuchera, obsidian - totally black, a cool hot pink daylily, some species tulips that were free with a purchase, and some iris bulbs that were too cheap to pass up.

 

This week, we're going to the Tacoma home and garden show. My sister wants to remodel her bathroom, so we're looking for ideas. I'll also be looking for gardening "stuff". We're hoping to attend a mason bee clinic and get some supplies for our bee colonies. This is a warm up for the big seattle flower show in a couple of weeks. I can hardly wait!

 

P.s. the bare root plants are starting to come in to the nurseries too.......

 

new year, new list....

So, the deck is fixed. All that needs to be done is to clean and apply a stain/sealer. Can't do that until it's dry and just a bit warmer than 35 degrees.

Here we are in a new year. The house is done, the shop is roofed....but, wait, there's still a wishlist of things to be done.

This year, some of the things we want to accomplish.....
Finish the fence the rest of the way. We just have a gate on one side and about 40' with a couple of gates on the other, to have a completely fenced, hopefully deer resistant yard. We made huge progress on that today with a field trip to home depot. Our little impulse buy resulted in a 6'chain link panel that will make a great garden side gate, another couple of panels that will be the gate by the dog kennel, and the posts that we will need to finish. Why not.....now all we need to finish is another roll of chain link. Hopefully that will at least slow the deer down.  They're eating machines.....

some other projects.....
build a stone patio, fire pit, and bbq table along side the house. We'll have to level the area and get the stones, but we already have the firepit, and we'll use the leftover tile from the fireplace to make the bbq table.

finish painting the shop and the pump house.

build a dry stream bed in the back corner of the lot where nothing will grow because it turns into a swamp when it rains.

build a grape arbor along the fence, a copper trellis for the sweet peas, and some permanent supports for tomatoes in the raised beds.

Get the pump for the cistern up and working so that we can water the garden with rainwater...the original plan.

Clean and stain the deck...

somehow score a couple of loads of woodchips to mulch the front and back flower beds.

PHEW! I'm tired already! I'm SURE there will be more, but that's a pretty good start.
The thing about gardening is that it's constantly evolving.
I'll leave y'all with some pics of the yard the way it is today......we've made quite a bit of progress. I can hardly WAIT for spring! This was last may, the landscapers had just started.....

 

here we are today....winter and all....