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Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Our Place, May 2011

It's been a while since I've done a post about our home and the improvements we've done to Casa de 1970. We're definitely overdue, and there's a lot of smallish things we've done that we're proud of, so I'm showin' 'em off.

See this vehicle? It's ours. Like, literally ours. We OWN this! 

Aaahh, what an awesome feeling.
 In October, we planted some spring bulbs out front. Last year we had some large pots and window boxes outside, but we both really like the idea of something that comes back each year. Since I was Angie the Pregosaur, I didn't really help with this project, but I'll say "we" just for the hell of it.


First, we started by extending and rearranging the stone border around the bushes. We extended the stones so that they went to the corners of the house instead of just smallish circles around the bushes. I really like this, because it makes the landscaping look a little more polished and less like someone threw some rocks around some bushes.

All we need is the white picket fence.
Next, we planted spring bulbs. Since I couldn't do much of the digging and planting, Graham let me pick the bulbs and decide on their placement.


I picked four types of flowers because I can't ever make a decision about anything. We alternated with red and purple tulips, which look and smell gorgeous.

We didn't have enough tulips to go completely across the front, so we put our tulips on the ends and placed daffodils right in front.


Call it an Easter miracle, but with the exception of the purple tulips which bloomed this past weekend, our red tulips and daffodils were all blooming and open on Easter morning. It was pretty terrific.

Behind the tulips and daffodils we planted purple irises. You can't see them yet, but they're starting to come up. Our neighbors on the corner have gorgeous irises, and I fell in love with them last year. These will come up later in the season, and I'm really excited to see how they're going to look.


While Graham has been doing much more work in the garden than me, I'm happy to say that this year I've been able to help out and work on some of the weeding and planting. Last year I had to opt out and let him do it all because of the risk of toxoplasmosis to me and Nanner. We weren't sure if any kitties had been using the garden as a litter box, so we chose to play it safe. This year, I've been slowly getting myself into the garden, and as the snow melted and the ground warmed, I was suuuuuuuuuper excited to see that my perennial herbs have returned!


Oregano on the left and chives on the right. I have some small sage plants growing behind them, too.

The old lady who lived here before we did loved to garden. Unfortunately, it got too much for her as she got older and she left her flowers and garden to their own devices. Last year we had peonies growing all over the place, small rose of sharon trees all over the yard, and lots of green leaves but only two daffodils. This year we broke open the ground in front of the garage and did some...redistributing.


We created a small raised bed in the back where we broke up some huge clusters of daffodils--like, seriously huge--and then planted some more tender bulbs in front of them. We'll have calla lilies growing here this summer!

My friend Amy yelled at me for uprooting daffodils in the spring because we likely shocked them. Not the best practice, but since we really didn't expect them to bloom this year given their condition, we figured it was okay. I should have taken photos.....you really can't imagine how many bulbs were growing in some of these clusters we uprooted. Some of the bulbs were so small and being choked out! This layout is much better and will give the daffodils a chance to reestablish themselves and actually grow and thrive.


This area will probably always be a work in progress. This side of our garage was a jungle when we moved in. There was a sick rose bush, peonies all over the place, and an infestation of day lilies. Add in some small and stubborn rose of sharon trees, weeds forever, and growth from the neighbors on the left, and we had a situation. Graham spent half of his spring break last year hacking away at the mess back there and trying to make sense of it. He replanted a ton of peonies that were growing where our vegetable garden was, and he broke up some huge clusters of peonies he found over here. He also cut back the rose bush and dug up a number of day lilies because they were taking over. It doesn't look like much now, but once everything blooms, this area is quite lovely.

See these down here? See that growth?


These are the peonies that Graham dug up last spring and transplanted over to this side of the garage. Like I mentioned above, he probably shocked them by digging them up in the spring, because they didn't bloom and just flopped over. However, it looks like nature is on our side because they're growing just the same and will be blooming this season.

So there you have it! Nature and flowers and springtime goodness. You're welcome.

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