yew is dead

I took the yew I had dug up in to Underwoods today and it is dead. Since I've had it for more than 6 months, there is no money back. It looks like it is another victim of the late frost. They will have another big 30% off sale around the first of the year and I'll buy a replacement then unless I can find one cheaper at another nursery. So sad. The thinking is that it too was a victim of the Easter Freeze as there was no other obvious causes of death.

It was too cold again today to paint the water heater hut. I did get out and water a few containers in the AM, dumped a few more summer things and used the pressure washer nozzle to clean out my ceramic and terra cotta containers. This afternoon, we took all of them over to storage. My yard is a lot neater now, but I am wishing more than ever that the shack was functional. Maybe later...

I did plant the lantana from the hanging basket, basically throwing it into the ground and the front of the left hand side of the perennial bed. I then dug down a little hole and put the unplanted butterfly bush, pot and all, in that hole. Over in the shade border, I dug three holes for the three hydrangeas in 1 gallon containers that have been sitting there. Penny Mac, Marchal Foch and my propogated Endless Summer are now all sunk into the ground for the winter. I also moved the two potted hostas way back along the fence line. I am going to do some more raking in a few days, then pile some leaves in this area.

We went to Country Boys and got my Christmas presant, a wine and silver blue garden angel. I totally couldn't afford it, but I couldn't pass it up either. I also got a few other plants to add to some containers before my presentation at work on Wednesday. I also took some pictures this afternoon and I hope that some of them will work. I am hoping for a slow day at work to work on the powerpoint presentation I said I'd make. Wish I had the program on my home computer.

This evening, as it was getting dark, I moved the English Thyme I had divided into the whiskey barrel, stuck a new spruge I bought today in the center of the barrel and stuck the sage that had been growing in a small plastic pot on the back side of my whiskey barrel. I plan on sticking in a few pansies and then it should be ready for winter.

new wreaths, too cold to paint

It never got above 46 today that I saw, so it was too cold to paint. I spent the morning working on web sites. We went out and did a bit of shopping this afternoon. I got two small artificial wreaths at Country Boys and two red ribbons at Big Lots. I have hung one wreath on each front window. I think they look as nice as the ones with the bows from Country Boys, but my bows were a lot less expensive. I also hung my Christmas wreath that I got at Country Boys a few weeks ago. The house is starting to look a little bit Christmasy.


We are debating putting up the Christmas tree because of the dogs, but I think we probably will, just might not hang any ornaments down low.

Tomorrow it is supposed to be above 50, so maybe I will get my chance to paint. If not, we are looking at rain again next week.

leaves mulched, daffodils planted

This morning Mark, who works with us, came over with his mulching mowers to do something about the leaves. After the bag-a-rama last year, the much quicker and easier and more environmentally friendly mulching was worth every penny. All the leaves in the front yard mulched in really well. I just had to pick up some more catalpa leaves from the foundation beds.

The back yard went really well too. The entire area where I tried to grow grass along the side of the house is currently mulched catalpa leaves. Maybe it will help feed the dirt! I am thinking that in the spring I might put a layer of that seed starting soil down there and try again to grow grass.

Everywhere else looks great as well and as a bonus I got my grass cut as well. After Mark left, I worked getting some of the leaves off my beds where I have pansies and doing a little bit of weeding. I also decided to finally dig up the left yew and try potting it up to see if it could be saved. The roots around the outside edge seemed to not be in good shape, but the roots in the center and the bottom of the rootball look okay to me. I also cut back a few of the browned out branches to see if I could find any green wood. Not sure if I did or not. I am thinking about taking it in to Underwoods tomorrow to see if they have any suggestions or ideas.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the shack in the back yard, and my current thinking is that it might be able to be repaired. I wanted to know more about what I was really dealing with, so while I had Bobbie's crowbar, I went out to the shack and did a little demo on the inside. The wall that faces Curtis's yard and where there is a hole in the roof pretty much totally need to be replaced. A few of the framing boards might be okay, but the bottom boards are rotted. Along the front, most of the framing seems okay, but the bottom boards are rotted again. The back and side that face Norman, where the root is intact, seem to have good usable framing. I will have Neil give me a better opinion when he comes out, but now he can get a better look at what we are actually dealing with. My mom said it might be easier to just tear the whole thing down and rebuild it from scratch. I can see the advantage to that as well. If so, I might make it slightly smaller, maybe 10 X 12. And of course, Bobbie's greenhouse idea did get me thinking and I need to research that clear plastic stuff she likes. I was thinking that the small back section could be turned into a greenhouse, with the siding and roof being totally that plastic stuff, except probably the door. If wouldn't be heated, but it might work.

Since we had a little bit of rain, I figured it was time to try to plant the daffodils. I started out using the bulb hound, but at least in the area I was planting in, it was easier going with my trowel. I got all 80 (minus a few bad ones) bulbs planted, mostly along the road side of the ditch in front of the house. I would like to get some more daffodils to plant along the property line with Curtis's house.

I checked out the water heater hut and it seemed dry today, so my current plan is to paint it tomorrow morning and maybe try to get a second coat on in the afternoon. I think the OSB will probably take MANY coats to cover. We went to Big Lots today and finally got a box to put the peat moss in, so that is now under the house and out of my kitchen! I wasn't thinking about painting then, or I would have gotten a few cheap rollers to use on the water heater hut. I may need to run out to Lowes, depending on what I have in my painting box under the house.

I used my shark floor sweeper on the carpet again today and it does work well, but there are places/areas where I just really need suction, so I decided I really needed a dust buster type of thing. This evening we went to Kohls and got a Shark pet hand held power-vac. It has to charge for almost a day, but I hope it works well. As it was Black Friday and Kohls was having major sales, we also got some more things to help stay warm. Mom got a down alternative comforter for her bed and I got a microfiber throw for the papasan chair and a microfiber blanket for my bed. They also had some really neat 8 X 10 picture frames that I got for some more garden photos. Need to decide where I'm going to put them, then send the photos to Walgreens for printing.

It is currently 35 outside. BRRRR! It seemed much colder this afternoon that it was in the morning, too cold for me to do any work outside. We are supposed to get down to 29 tonight, so I hope it warms up enough that I will want to be outside to paint tomorrow. And I hope that the paint I got last year and left outside under the tarp all year is still good as well!

shopping for tile, raking leaves, cleaning

I was off work today and went shopping for tile. I found exactly what I was looking for, but it was $9.81/square foot. I found something else that was close to what I want but it was $6.35/square foot. I have decided to just but an $11 box of the tile that is already in the bathroom and not pull up the good tile that is still down. I just need to add some sort of compound to level out the floor in the bathroom and I will be ready to tile.

The water heater hut is now dry on the front, but still damp on the top. I brushed off the leaves, and if we don't get any more rain, it should be ready to paint next week. I raked up 2 bags of leaves today and raked some more into the start of some piles. I did get all the catalpa leaves out from around the front tree. They had almost buried the hellabore. The hellabore is putting out some nice new foliage and I hope that I will get some blooms this year.

I was running out of bags and raking leaves is not one of my favorite things, so I switched to cleaning the kitchen floor. I really need to break out the vacumn, as there is a lot of wood dust from the bathroom, but didn't get that far today. I did sweep it well, used some cleaner on some of the worst areas and damp swiffered the whole floor. I think it looks pretty good now. I have been trying to find another runner like the one long one I have to put in front of the sink and counter, but Target seems to have stopped making that style. They now make a somewhat similar rug, but it has a red stripe in it and I don't want that for my kitchen. I found another rug that might work, but it is light tan, now exactly my top choice what with the kitchen being the room you go through from outside.

I finished off this evening doing a little cleaning in the bathroom. Again trying to get up some of the construction dust and just a little general cleaning. I think things are looking better now. I need to water my fern again and once I do that I will have a mess to sweep up in the living room.

bathroom floor fixed

Neil came today and fixed the bathroom floor. The wood was totally rotted through, so it is good we didn't wait any longer. Only at a small section right under the toilet needed to be replaced and he checked everything from under the house to make sure that the beams and other wood was okay. Perhaps the most exciting thing was that he found duct work to the bathroom duct, that had just come undone and was able to refasten it, so we now have a heated bathroom, rather than just relying on the space heater! Progress!

The bathroom floor is still a work in progress. Since the thickness of wood has changed over the years, there is about a 1/8" difference in height between the existing floor and the new floor. The 3/4" treated plywood was not thick enough, so there is a sheet of thinner, non-treated plywood as the top layer. Hopefully that will be okay. The original floor wasn't treated wood, and it was fine until the toilet started leaking. I do need to ask at a tile store and find out what to do about the slight difference in height between the two parts of the floor. I am also going to go try to find the hex tiles I want tomorrow. Right now the toilet is sitting on a little piece of plywood that is higher than the surrounding floor. The current plan is that after Thanksgiving, Neil will come back and lift up the toilet so my mom and I can tile the floor and while we are tiling, he will do some electrical work, trying to hang the living room light, investigating the mystery box under the house and seeing about trying to add an ourdoor outlet.

I am thinking more and more about just trying to insulate the house myself. Maybe Bobbie would want to come and help feed the insulation into the hopper. I just don't feel like I'll even get all the money I'd need to have it done saved up, something else always seems to come up.

Meanwhile, on other fronts, I had taken the tarp of the water heater hut earlier this week to let it dry. I noticed yesterday that it was dry, but I didn't have time to paint it before work as I had other things I had to do yesterday morning. Overnight we got 1/2" of rain and, of course, the tarp was off the hut. We don't have any more rain forcast, so I am hoping it dries out in time for the Thanksgiving holiday and I can paint it then when I'm off work.

no work on the bathroom

I had arranged to work nights tonight so that Neil could come and fix the bathroom. Well, he called at 7 AM and said he that thrown his back out and couldn't come. So, now I am working nights and the bathroom is STILL not fixed. I have no idea when we will ever get this fixed. Next week is Thanksgiving and we simply can not take any time off that week due to vacations.

I was going to paint the water heater hut, but the sheeting on the top and front are damp, so I took the tarp off to let them dry out. We have a small chance of rain on Wednesday, but I'm currently hoping that holds off and that the sheeting will be dry by then so I can paint it Wednesday. Then, there would be an outside chance I could shingle it on Friday and that project would be done. If not, on Friday I might try to get back to working on painting the window frames outside. I really need to paint the two kitchen windows and finish up the one I had started working on on the side. Then, at some point I need to do something about the putty situation on the laundry room window.

planted up more containers, plus raked leaves

I raked up my first two bags of leaves in the back yard today. I didn't get all the leaves that I plan to rake up (I'm leaving them on the ground as mulch in some areas) but I did get most of them. I still have a lot of raking in my future as most of the leaves seem to still be on my trees. Guess most of my leaf fall is going to be a bit later this year than it was last year, since I did my major leaf raking about this time last year.

I continued to empty out some of the summer pots. I had this idea to reuse some of the potting soil in the bottom of the winter pots, so I have been dumping the soil in my wheelbarrow and pulling out the roots as best as I can. I potted up one pot of violas, several pots of pansies, both ornamental kales and put the carex and dolche peach melba coral bells in their own pots for this winter. I also got the back yard watered pretty well, but didn't get to the front. I hope to have time to do that tomorrow.

After all that, we went out to Country Boys and got a few more pansies, then Bobbie called and wanted to get the plywood for Neil to use in the bathroom tomorrow. So, we went out and got that and also a wax seal for the toilet, which I realized we left in Bobbie's van. I'll go get that tomorrow AM when I go out to get cash to pay Neil. I also got a pack of broken roofing shingles so I can finally do something about working on the water heater hut. Maybe if it does not look like rain on Wednesday I can paint it Wednesday AM, then maybe work on getting the shingles on Friday when I am off for the day. I need to look up about shingling online somewhere to see exactly what I need to do.

planted Debutante and Autumn Belle

I finally got my Debutante camellia planted today, in place of the one that got killed by the frost earlier this year. It may be a tad close to my two Miss Biloxis, they are 4 1/2' away, but I think it will look good. This one is a 3 gallon plant, so hopefully it will thrive. I dug out a large area for the planting, and dug down just a little bit in an even larger area to try to get rid of some of the surface roots. The trees in my neighbor's yard seen to send out TONS of surface roots. Not sure what they are but I hope they aren't River Birches. Hopefully my camellia bed is not doomed due to root competition.



I also got the Autumn Belle azalea planted, using the left over dirt it had been sitting on and some left over dirt from the planted Debutante. I still have a bit of nicely ammended leftover dirt, so I put it in one of the grey boxes to use when I start planting the other Encore azaleas I have. I don't have a clue where I am going to go with them, so they will have to wait a bit before I plant them. Belle turned out to be a bit drier than I thought she was, so I might set each of the others in some water for a little bit, as I am now thinking they might be a bit on the dry side as well.

I am impressed with the Autumm Amethyst that I planted earlier this year. She has quite a few blooms now, and these azaleas are great as they are the only thing in bloom in my yard right now, other than a few aging hydrangea blooms and pansies.

I am thinking about looking for a winter daphne, since I have several really nice big fiberglass pots now. I do remember them being pretty expensive last year though, so maybe I'll wait until Underwoods has another sale.

I think tomorrow will be another yard clean-up day, since I am done with most of the planting for right now. I bought 2 little cement pavers at Lowes today to try putting under some of my big pots for the winter as a sort of version of pot feet (which turn out to be unexpectedly expensive). I think they worked pretty well, so I may get some more. I thought I might be able to get away with them not being visable at all, but that is not going to happen. But, since most of my pots are behind other things, I still think they will work well, at $.59 each, they are a lot cheaper than pot feet!

bathroom repair pt 1 and cheap azaleas

Neil came out to look at the bathroom today and decided he could do the job on Monday. That is great except that mom and I had today off and we both have to work on Monday. We are now both working Monday night and I'm hoping mom will be able to go in at 5 PM, which should be enough time for him to get the job done. I hope!

That left us with a whole day off, but it is too cold to do much work outside. The cold temps are really effecting the leaves on the hydrangeas and I think most are headed toward dormancy ASAP. So, we went around and tried to find the hex tiles I remember seeing earlier this year. I think they must have been at a flooring store, as I did not see them at any of the Lowes or Home Depots we went to. While I was buying mulch at Lowes, I overheard a very interesting conversation. Seems that all the cheap 3 gallon Encore azaleas they keep getting are from a warehouse in Atlanta. Due to the watering restrictions there, they can't water the plants so they keep sending truckloads up here. Now, apparently there was problem with the last order, someone put it in the computer wrong and rather than selling at 2 for $20, they are selling at 4 for $20 or $5 a piece.

Autumn Sangria Encore azalea:


Our local Lowes was out of azaleas, so we went over to Woodruff Rd and I got 4 azaleas. One I'm going to give to Norman and the other three I'll figure out where to put at some point in time. If worse comes to worst, they will work well in the border along the fence line with Norman.

hard freeze

Last night we had temps in the low 30s, though no frost, but that was that for my summer plants. I spent part of the morning cutting down dead plants and either tossing the potting soil if there were too many roots or dumping it out to use a mulch. I still have some work left to go on the herb garden and some more pots that I need to toss the soil from. I filled up my garbage can and tomorrow is trash day, so I'll start in again working on that tomorrow afternoon.

Some sunny, warm day in the future, I'll have to work on actually washing out all the pots. I also need to take all my stakes down to the tool shed, as I won't need them again until spring.

I still have a few more pansies and the cabbages to put in pots and now I have lots of empty pots. I'm planning on only using the plastic pots this winter. The terra cotta will be stored until summer. I'm looking for pot feet to put under some of my pots that will be used all winter. I've found a few on ebay, but as they are clay, the shipping is kind of expensive. I know I had seen some earlier this year at Home Depot or Lowes and I've got to go back and see if I can find them again.

old enemies- chickweed and onions

The cooler weather has brought a return visit from two of my old enemies... chickweed and wild onions. I got up early this AM and spent a little time out in the yard. Nothing looked like it needed to be watered, so I spent some time weeding the pansies in front of the camellias and the area around the Generale and Ayesha. I am upset at how much chickweed is already growing through the mulch and I have a major patch of onions on the edge of the pansy border.

There is so much I want to/need to do on the house, but I just don't know where to start or where I will find the money to do everything. The bathroom mess is probably going to take all the money I had saved up for insulation. I had really hoped I'd be getting the house insulated next week, now I'm looking at maybe in a month, but I'll have a much bigger gas bill then, which will cut into the money I would have been able to set aside. Plus, this month I have to pay the water bill, which seems to be about the same as the previous times, so my watering doesn't seem to be making much of a difference. Still, that is money that COULD have been set aside for insulation, but instead has to go to other things.

The weather report is calling for another freeze overnight on Tuesday, so I will have to get up early tomorrow and try to harvest the last of the peppers, as some of my plants are too big to try to bring inside and it really is getting on to winter. The eggplant already is looking like it is feeling the effects of the cold. I'm off all this coming weekend, so I think I will use that time to clean up the garden, dump the rest of the summer annuals and veggies and try to finally plant the Debutante camellia. This is starting to be a repeat of the Margaret Davis situation, where I planned to plant her for months before I actually got the job done. I also need to dig a few holes to sink my remaining unplanted 1 gallon hydrangea pots into the ground for the winter. Speaking of hydrangeas, I moved Buttons N Bows over into the shade border to try to keep whatever has been digging in its pot away. I'm still thinking it is a squirrel.

washing the porch

This afternoon, after we got home from NC, I watered the yard, then worked on trying to clean the front porch. I used the new little high pressure nozzle I bought the other day and it did a pretty good job in a lot of places, I even washed off the front of the house. The water also took off some of the grey porch paint. What ever type of paint the underlying blue paint is, the grey paint was not the right type to paint over successfully.

I think a winter project might be trying to do something with the porch. I need to somehow first remove all the grey paint and then figure out what I can paint over the exisiting blue paint. I also would like to scrub at the porch some and see if I can get it cleaner. Next time, I will also get some kind of squeegy to help remove the water from the porch, as I think this will make the task easier.

I just looked out the window and thought that it was getting dark early, then realized that today was the first day of daylight savings. So long working in the yard after work, at least until late spring.

planted some more pansies

Yesterday I was out of town in NC for most of the day, but got back into town and stopped by Country Boys. I had wanted to get some more Crown Golden pansies to put in front of the Masja hydrangea and some others for the porch containers and when I had that all picked out, I was up to 5 packs and a flat is 8 packs and would have only cost $1.50 more, so I got a whole flat.

Back home, I watered all the hydrangeas. Mini Penny and Fuji were wilty again as were new Penny Mac and Marchael Foch, though to a lesser extent. I then planted the pansies in front of Masja, then set to work on the containers. I ended up planting up 5 containers, though I still have more I want to plant. So far I have 4 pots of pansies and one of violas. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the cabbages Bobbie gave me and I would still like to get some pansies in the "shade" border which once the leaves drop will turn into a sun border!

Today I am going back to NC for the morning and should be home to do some yard work in the afternoon.

toilet don't fall...

We have been noticing that the tiles around our toilet seem to be getting more broken. Last night I decided to investigate... The toilet visually appears to be sitting a little lower than the surrounding floor and the tiles around it are all broken. I pulled one part of a broken tile away and the wood under it was soggy. This is not good. I called Bobbie and she gave me the number of a workman who was supposed to come out today. But, then my mom got sick and had to cancel that. The plan was that he would be able to come out next Thursday and actually do the work. He needs to get under the house and see how much of the subfloor in the bathroom needs to be replaced. He also does plumbing and I'm hoping that the leak in the toilet, and there must be a leak somewhere in the bowl, is just a bad wax seal that can be replaced easily and not something wrong with the pipes.

Last night we went out to Lowes and Home Depot and found matching bathroom tiles at Home Depot. If only part of the floor needs to be replaced, we can just use these tiles. If the whole floor needs to be replaced, I'm putting down hex tiles, even if it costs a bit more, as that is what I really want in the bathroom and if I'm having to re-tile it, why not put in what I really want.

The good news is that if this guy actually comes and and does the job he might be able to do some other odd jobs like finally hanging the living room light and replacing the bad subfloor where the water heater was in the kitchen.

In the meantime, I'm just crossing my fingers that the bad wood does hold and the toilet doesn't end up in the crawl space...