rainy, nasty day

Another full weekend off from work and still not making near the progress I would have liked to have made. I still have one camellia that needs to be planted.

Yesterday was one of those days when finding the things you need to get the tasks you want accomplished seems to take up most of your time. I went out to Home Depot in the AM to get some more mulch, some garden soil and some composted manure. My local Home Depot was out of my mulch, but ended up getting Scott's Garden soil and some sort of compost with manure in it. Well, both of those purchases turned out to be total disappointments. Both are a sort of greyish color and the Scott's soil has a slight odor to it. I don't it NEARLY as well as I like the Miracle Grow garden soil, so it will be back to using that for me in the future. Ended up going to another Home Depot to get my mulch.

One major project for yesterday was running an additional piece of fence from the shack out to the exisiting fenceline. This needed to be done as there is a small area beside the shack where the fence is partially down, I thought I pretty much had access to that area blocked off but after having one dog escape three times this week... Of course, this task required a trip out as I needed to buy some wire cutters to cut the fencing. Did get the fence cut and also managed to scratch my face when the fencing sprang out at me. Just what everyone wants, a big scratch on their cheek from a rusty fence...

Working with the fencing has given me some more confidence and I think that in the next month or so I will just buy a few additional post and a 50' roll of the narrower holed field fencing and work at repairing the damaged fenceline between my house and my neighbor's house. This should eliminate the need for the need for the fences between the shack and the exisiting fence and clear the way for me to have the shack torn down (whenever I have a spare few hundred dollars...).

I also priced driveway gates and the gates are $67 at Home Depot, so I think I could probably get the driveway fencing done for less than $200, I hope. So maybe that is something that could get done next month.

As far as yard work yesterday, I did manage to get the large holly straightened up and staked so it will remain straight. It does look a lot better. I also took the small holly that appeared dead out of the ground and called it dead. Finally I did get the creeping phlox I had recently purchased planted by the gas meter. I did ammend the ground around it a little bit and would love to get something else planted in there before it is taken over with chickweed.

My major surprise in the yard is that the native creeping phlox I planted last year is starting to bloom. This plant has definitely done well in my yard so far. All three have increased in size and now I am getting my first blooms. I weeded around them some more to give them an easier time as they grow. I will need to contiune to weed out this area and might actually get it looking pretty good.

Today I only succeeded in moving the rhodie. It was getting sunburned where I originally planted it and I finally decided it was time to move it. I recently moved the azalea from the shrub border into the woodland garden as it was getting run over by the dogs fence fighting. I decided to move the rhodie into the woodland garden over by the azalea. Currently the shack and the nut tree provide pretty constant shade for that location. I ended up burying it in a volcano made out of the Scott's garden soil, some other commerical topsoil I have (that I have also decided I'm not wild about and will use the remainder just to partially fill containers) and the compost with manure. The resulting mixture was pretty greyish and seemed kind of wet and heavy to me. I was really wishing I had the Miracle Grow soil. I did see small bags of peat moss somewhere, so I think I will buy one of those and some of the Miracle Grow soil and mix that to fill in around the azalea and the rhodie. Maybe I will get to that this week.

I did get one bag of mulch spread by the three Toms. I need to spread the rest of the mulch at some point but that can wait until I plant the remaining camellia.

I hoping to get the Margaret Davis camellia planted on Wednesday AM, guess I can use the compost and the Scott's soil and ammendments and it should work okay for the camellia.

Bare root perennials and spring bulbs are starting to appear in the stores. I don't think I can plant any of these things until after March 15th, so not sure when to buy them as I don't want them to get ruined in the house. Saw some good stuff as Sams today, 100 glads for $14 and 50 caladiums at the same price, also bare root hostas and bleeding hearts. I would like to get all of them. The hostas aren't too exciting but for about $1 per plant I can plant them under the yucky trees on the street side of the fence in my side yard. If they thrive that will be great and help keep down the weeds, if not I won't be out a ton of money.

Did measure several of my plants today so I can maybe tell if they grow this spring and summer:
Mountain Fire Pieris- 2' 5"
Valley Rose Pieris- 1'
tea olive- 2'

winter again

We are back to winter weather, down in the mid 30s. It is too cold to work in the yard before work today and I just didn't get organized early enough to do any work in the house before work either. Hopefully this weekend I can get some planting done and borrow Bobbie's drill and get my blinds hung.

No progress on anything right now.

yard work continues

Again it has been a long time since I've posted it seems. I haven't done really anything around the house lately, but as the mild weather in SC has been continuing, I have been working in the yard.

With one additional dog now at the house, the yard is doing okay. I think my shrub border along the one fenceline will work very well, though one part I had planned to plant with annuals or perennials will definately have to be shrubs instead as the whole area is totally dug up from having dogs running in it. I have pretty much abandoned the idea of flowers along this fenceline except for in little bed I already dug in front of the telephone pole and maybe some containers. I also think that if I do add some shrubs to the area that is all torn up by the dogs, I will have to spend a little extra money at get at least 3 gallon plants so they will be big enough to make the dogs go around, not through, the plants.

My major problem recently has been that their is clover coming up through the mulch in my foundation plantings. It took me 2 days, but I got almost all of the clover dug out of the foundation beds, hopefully no additional clover will sprout up from any of the bulb things I may have missed. We shall see...

As far as bulbs go, our mild winter means that the paperwhites have already come up not only in pots but also under the tree. Most of the bulbs that sent up foliage under the tree have now bloomed and so have most of the bulbs in the pot up on the porch. The bulbs in the pot in the bed are just beginning to bloom. The white pot has some sort of foliage that came up quite a while ago, but no blooms. I think this might be muscari???

I am continuing to have problems with the dogs running into the small pieris. I have been using a lawn chair to protect it on one side but today hit on the idea of using two containers, one on each side of the plant. So, it was off the nurseries today to look for plants. I got some really pretty snapdragons with burgandy foliage, who cares if they even bloom, just the foliage looks great! I also got a licorice plant, with really pretty silver foliage and an English thyme, also with some lovely foliage. I picked up another rosemary at Home Depot and it was very fragrant. At some point I also bought an upright vinca plant. I topped all this off with a few more pansies. I ended up planting 3 snapdragons and the licorice plant in one container and the thyme, rosemary and vinca in another pot. The remaining snapdragon and all the pansies when into the little annual bed in front of the telephone pole. I have a trailing vinca that I bought for the pots, but ran out of room for (guess I could always buy another pot and some more pansies...) so it is hanging out in its container in the annual bed for right now. Home Depot also had some creeping phlox out that was even starting to bloom. I got a really pretty kind of light purple and white one that I am planning on planting on the side of the house by the gas meter.

I did not get my new camellia planted today as I battled sinus pressure headaches off and on all day and just didn't feel up to all the work of digging. Maybe on Wednesday I can get these few other plants dug in.

After several days in the low 70s we are supposed to be going back down to highs in the 50s this week. So, Wednesday AM may or may not be good weather to garden in. I just can't stand being out there when it is only in the 30s.

planting not painting

My plan for the day had been to buy more painter's tape, finish taping the laundry room and get the trim painted. The weather report had been calling for rain, just like yesterday so I figured it would be a good day to stay inside. We did have some drizzles this AM, but even by 11 AM the sun was out and it was starting to warm up.

The day ended up being really mild and sunny, so we decided that it would be best to let the dogs enjoy the yard for the afternoon, which meant that I would be in the yard all afternoon as well. The cabbage in a pot on the front porch has been looking less and less excited about life, so I decided that today was the day to transplant it into the back yard and put something else in its pot on the porch. I had some mushroom compost and garden soil left, so I decided to really dig a patch of ground by the telephone pole that I am planning to use as an annual garden this spring and summer. I ended up digging about a 3' square area and then tossed some leftover ammended dirt on top of about another 2' square area. I planted the cabbage and also some pansies my mom bought. The cabbage pot now has pansies in it as well and is back on the front porch. I had a big surprise when I was watering my porch plants today... some of the paperwhite bulbs that have had foliage coming up for a while now have buds on them. I guess my paperwhites will either get nailed by a frost or bloom really early this year due to the mild weather.

Back to work for 4 days, so the only chance I'll have to really get another done around the house is Wednesday morning. Since the laundry room does not have a light, it is too dark to work in there when it is dark outside. I'm off the coming weekend, so if I don't get the laundry room done before then, I should be able to get it done then.

kitchen painting done

Another rainy day today and after getting home from Goose Creek late last night it was hard to get motivated this AM. I did finally get the kitchen painting done, having put another coat of white on the bottom part of the former water heater corner and then doing a few final touch-ups.

I also taped off almost all the crown moulding in the laundry room, but I ran out of tape. What with the bad weather and all I just didn't feel up to making a Home Depot run just for painter's tape. I still need to get a shelf for the laundry room as well and I think I will get some smaller drywall anchors to try to hang the shelf with.

We still have so much stuff in storage that either needs to come into the house or go to Goodwill. I am hoping that in the next week or so we will finally get a cabinet to use as a pantry in the kitchen, which should help with the "stuff" situation some.

The weather report is calling for more wet weather tomorrow, so there will be no yard work, but I will try to get some more painter's tape and hopefully get the crown moulding painted at least in the laundry room. Maybe I can also work on going through my closets a bit more. So far the double rod closet is working very well. It gives my clothes more space, though even with two rods it is pretty full and I have to wonder how I ever crammed everything onto one rod!

sick... so no work

I had hoped to work some more on organizing my closets after work yesterday and today, but I seem to have the stomach flu, so we have a work stoppage.

We really need some sort of shelving unit to use as a pantry so that we can get the wire cart out of the middle of the kitchen. We also need a medicine cabinet, but that also needs someone to drill and hang it, so it is further back on the priority list.

I would love some sort of small outdoor storage building to store my garden tools in. I also realized that I will have to bump putting real gate up in my yard up in the priority list at least to the spring or I will either by able to have a lawn mower in my front yard or a lawn mower in my back yard. If only I could get away with just a walk gate, as they run about $30, while a full 10' drive gate is about $100. I'll have to talk to Bobbie and see what she thinks. I had thought that maybe I could put a walk gate on the AC side of the house and leave the other fence up on the drive side until I have more money for a drive gate. Who knows...

painting and closets

Yesterday was a big painting day. I was able to finish up painting the kitchen (except for a little in the water heater area) and ended up doing the edging myself after we came home from dinner last night.

In addition to painting the kitchen, I decided that I really needed to finish up a few other painting projects. I had a few touch-ups to do on the brown paint, one area I had totally forgotten to paint down by the carpet and another touch-up where they gouged the woodwork getting our couch in the door. I also wanted to paint the entire woodwork surrounding the dining room closet door and also paint the back side of the door. This was my dark brown paint going over white, so I put on the first coat yesterday and touched it up with pretty much a second coat this morning.

I have been planning to put in a second clothing rod in my main closet since we moved in. I finally asked where the rods were at Home Depot and found what I wanted and as I had gotten up early today, I had enough time to add the 2nd rod (though it was not easy to do) and get my closet more organized.

Then I decided to tackle my second closet that is also the attic entrance. During the home inspection, I am SURE the home inspector moved aside some sort of pop-up to get into the attic. I had thought that the entrance to the attic was open, so I took everything out of the closet and removed the shelf to see for myself. Sure enough the entrance to the attic was wide open. I had some trouble getting my ladder into the closet and finally had to settle for sort of wedging it in and going up the ladder sideways while it was still folded up. This did allow me to get all the way up to the attic and low and behold... there was no pop-up, nothing to close the attic off with at all. I finally managed to get a piece of foamular up there, but it does not really fit in the hole properly so the attic is definitely not closed off, but I'm hoping sort of closed off is better than not closed off at all.

Back in the kitchen, I had a small hole in the wall back where the water heater used to be and also a much larger hole than their needed to be around one of the pipes left over from the water heater. I ended up filling these holes with expandable foam, which worked pretty well, though I did kind of smooth it around with a paper towel to get it to fill in the hole in the wall. I'm sure when I actually have someone really fix that area (add flooring and wainscotting to the wall) the foam might be a touch of a pain, but at least for right now I have plugged up a major source of cold air into my kitchen.

The next few days I probably won't have time to do much, but I am hoping to maybe get the lower part of the water heater area painted white. Then I will be able to move the toaster oven cart back into place and the kitchen will essentially be done for the time being. We shall see...

2 coats of paint & 2 faucets

FINALLY got some work done on the house today. The goal for quite some time has been to finish up painting the trim and wainscotting in the bathroom. Today, I finally was able to get the bathroom ceiling, woodwork and wainscotting painted. It looks pretty good, but when I went to remove the blue tape, especially around the window, a bunch of the wall color came up, and the tape had only been on for a few hours. So, went down to the crawl space to get the mostly empty can of the bathroom wall color and touched up the bathroom wall color and also did a little touch up in the laundry room. I still need to paint the trim in the laundry room, but that will be a bit more difficult with the washer and dryer in there, plus all my garden tools. That may wait until spring or at least until I have somewhere to put the tools.

Then, since I'd been crawling around the bathroom floor, I had a look at the faucet on the sink. And, as we had pretty much the whole day to work on things, decided to finally try to put on the new bathroom faucet. The only problem I really had was that it was quite cramped back there behind the sink and the old faucet was attached with metal nuts. One came right off by hand, but the other was more stuck and it took a bit of working on it with pliers before I got it loose enough to remove. Overall, the installation of the faucet was not that hard, but I did not go ahead and install a new pop-up drain at this point in time because I wasn't 100% sure how to remove the old pop-up drain. I also realized that the old drain had not been connected correctly, so technically this whole time we have not had a drain the just pulls like it is supposed to. Who knows, maybe we will tackle the pop-up drain tomorrow or maybe in a few weeks.

The success with the bathroom sink made us brave, so we decided to tackle the kitchen sink. Of course, one of the washers holding the old sink on came off quite easily and the other took some doing. Mom was able to loosen the stuck washer and actually had it about 1/2 the way off and hadn't even realized she got it to budge. The faucet installation again went basically smoothly. We also installed a new sprayer that came with this faucet set. The biggest problem we have had in the kitchen since we moved in is a lack of cold water pressure. Pretty much the cold water has always come out at barely a trickle, so we have essentially only had hot water in the kitchen. This is fine for washing dishes, but not so great for washing hands. Amazingly, installing the new faucet solved the cold water pressure issue. There must have been some sort of clog in the old faucet. If only we had known that this would solve the water pressure issue, we might have tackled this project a few months ago.

So, now I have a bit more room in the dining room closet and two much more attractive, much more period appropriate faucets on my sinks. Tomorrow I am thinking to trying to track down some clothes rods and trying to work on the main closet in my room. I really want to put in double rods, I can really use the extra closet space!


My original plan for Christmas weekend was to paint the kitchen. I had hoped by this point we would have already done the bathroom trim and also have done the laundry room trim and the crown moulding in my bedroom. Well, the laundry room and my bedroom are both going to require moving quite a lot of stuff, so they have been postponed for awhile. I did decide that there would probably be time tomorrow to paint the kitchen. With that in mind, I began taping the kitchen while we were making dinner. I was able to tape most of the kitchen with the tape I had left and just have a little bit to do tomorrow after a trip to Home Depot.

After dinner I thought I would try to edge the kitchen, as we didn't have a roller to do any of the large wall areas. One thing led to another and I ended up brushing the large wall areas as well on two of the walls and edging at least a bit on all 4 walls. There were several areas that were all taped, but needed to be sanded with a heavy grit sandpaper (which of course I couldn't find) and several other areas that still need some more tape. I have decided to leave edging along the ceiling for my mom to do tomorrow.

The final bit of painting I did tonight was to prime the hole in the kitchen were the water heater used to be. The area is mostly out of side, out of mind due to the toaster oven being in that area, but I decided that while I am painting it would be stupid not to at paint that area as well. And this is DEFINITELY an area that needs primer! This area also needs something to block some of the drafts that are coming in as well. We will try to use some of the foam rope we have and maybe some caulk tomorrow to see if we can reduce some of the drafts coming from a round hole in the wall and a much larger than it needs to be hole in the floor around one of the water pipes. Add to that the gap between the floor and the wall between the kitchen and the bathroom... Who knows, the kitchen might actually be a bit warmer by the time I'm done with this little project. But, the whole area needs professional attention. I think both the floor boards and wall board right around where the water heater was will need to be replaced. That will have to wait until we have more money. A dishwasher is seeming like an ever more distant dream...

weeding again

We had fairly warm weather again today (in the mid to high 60s) so I was back on with weeding. I again had to weed my foundation beds, that stupid little weed just keeps coming up no matter how much mulch I put down. That did not take me too much of the day, a few hours in the morning.

Most of my day was consumed with trying to weed my camellia bed where the Three Toms are planted. I made several mistakes on this bed. First, when I initially planted the bed, I laid down a layer of cyprus mulch, but it was too thin to control weeds, so they grew up through it. Then, when I decided to add the pine bark mulch, instead of weeding the bed first, I just added the mulch over top the weeds, hoping it would kill the weeds (I'll admit to making this same mistake on the foundation beds as well). I am REALLY paying for it now as I believe today was the first time I have ever tried to weed this bed. I worked on it for most of the afternoon, and did weed out some from where the pine bark is, out into the initial cyprus mulch area. With all my work, I only got about 1/2 of the bed weeded. Actually less than half and I still have some weeds growing up between the first two camellias. My plan is to finish weeding out this area, maybe even weed it again and then add probably 2-3 additional bags of the pine bark mulch. I also need to weed the hydrangea again and probably add some more mulch to it as well.

Tomorrow the forecast is rain, so I am hoping to FINALLY get some of the painting left in the house done. I keep saying I'm going to do it and keep getting sidetracked in the yard. But, if it rains all day that will keep me inside and being Christmas day, I won't be able to go shopping instead.

I went down and checked out the other camellia bed, the one I weeded before I mulched and also mulched deeper. It is looking good as far as the weeds are concerned, BUT my Miss Biloxi that is on the far left hand side has now dropped almost all her buds. Add to this the fact the Debutante never seems to have made any buds in the first place and I only have one camellia (the other Miss Biloxi) left in that bed that has any real amount of buds on it. So, now the camellia on each end of the back fence area has suffered from bud drop. I hope it is just the temperature fluctuations doing them in, not any diseases. I am currently wondering if any camellias will actually bloom for me this year. Actually, I am wondering if ANYTHING will bloom... or even survive.

rain, rain, rain

I have the day off from work today and it is cold and raining. I have to take the dogs to the vet this afternoon so haven't even been sufficiently inspired to try to do any of the painting that does need to be done.

Did go out and survey the yard, looking for any puddling areas. The good news is that none of my plants or planned beds are in areas with standing water. The bad news is there is a whole area of standing water down the center of my yard and there is pretty much a lake where my garbage can is. I half expect it to float away at any minute.

I would like to get a different doorknob to put on the closet door in the dining room, then move the knob that is on it now to my mom's room door (it is the same as the knob on my room door). I would like to try to put the porcelain knobs on bathroom door, but I really need some sort of rosettes first. I am going to go down to visit Sue at some point and thought I might try to get all the way down to Charleston to go to Charleston Hardware.

a little more decorating

Not too much work done today, as I just had a few hours before work. Did get the big red bow put on the magnolia wreath Bobbie had made for me.

We are still having dry weather, so I watered all the shrubs and did a touch more weeding. Whatever that little green weed is, it is growing faster than I can weed it out. I had to pull back all the pine needles by the side door and weed it out of that future bed. Hope the irises in there do okay as I haven't watered them since up to now they seem to be doing their own thing without my help, so why fix what isn't broken.

weeding and mulching

Today I wanted to finish up the last of mulching the shrubs. I started out by doing some weeding in the little area around the light pole that I am planning on using to try out some annuals come spring. I don't think I'm going to do the full on digging ammendments into the soil in this area at least for the coming year, but I did pull out as much as I could of the little weed that grows everywhere and put down some pine needles.

Then I moved on the the much bigger task of weeding the remaining 3 camellias, which were pretty much overgrown with the weed. I did get most of it pulled up and then added 3 bags of pine chip mulch, which covers the planting holes of the camellias and a little around them. I also weeded the camellias I had previously mulched but was lazy and did not weed. That area was a bit of a mess and I was able to get up some of the weeds.

I also dug out the large amount of honeysuckle that was back behind the shack. One of my co-workers said she wanted it, so I potted it up for her. I figure it is so invasive that it should root just fine in her yard and she said she wants it for a totally barren area and doesn't care if it spreads all over there. I do still have a bunch of honeysuckle roots in my ground. It was quite a lot of work to get it out of the ground and all the roots still attached are pretty short, but I think it will be okay. Digging the rest of the roots out of the ground will be an even bigger chore and one that I think I will save until I have the shack torn down and know what I am going to do in that area.

I finished up by weeding some more by the front door, this time in front of the drip line. I realized that there is no reason I can't plant on both sides of the drip line and that will enable to bed to really wrap around the corner of the hous.e

All the yard work left me pretty tired. I did buy some more ornaments for the tree at Big Lots, but I may leave those for my mom to hang tomorrow.

foundation planting pt 2

Did some more work on the foundation planting, now that I have the big holly for the corner planted. I also realized that the remaining small holly I got at Thanksgiving was about to die due to the fact that I tend to forget about it and not water it. So, I stuck it in the ground next to the nandina and watered it heavily and we will see how it does.

After doing the planting in the morning, I went to Underwoods to see if I could find any more of the cabbages like the one on my porch, but they didn't have any more. They did have some cute herb gardens and apparently there are more herbs than just rosemary that will make it through our winters. I was also looking for another plant to finish off the side part of my foundation planting. I had been thinking about a camellia, but I think the area actually has too much sun. As I was about to leave, I saw the guy who usually helps me and we discussed my garden plans. He thinks I will probably need to plant either another holly or another nandina in the side foundation area, due to all the hollies already there. Hum... He also did up a really nice sketch of a perennial bed along the back of my house. I will need to dig in clay buster and cow manure and then I will be ready for spring.

I added 5 bags of mulch to the front, to take the mulch bed around the side around the large holly and I also mulched around the small holly and finally got my forsythia mulched as well.

After finishing the mulching, it was off to the back yard to do some weeding in my future bedding areas. I started off weeding the area next to the side steps, planning right now to put some hostas and probably impatiens there. Then it was off to the side and back of the house. I got about 1/2 of the future perennial bed weeded. From there I went over and weeded the shade garden area where I plan to put in blue hostas and painted ferns. Once I was done weeding, I put down pine needles. I now have only 1 bale of pine needles left. I still need to weed the rest of the perennial bed area and also the area around the light pole along the fenceline that I think I may just use as an experimental annual bed.

new holly

Bobbie came by today and brought be an almost 4 foot tall holly to use for my corner planting and also a magnolia leaf wreath for the front of my house. I have the whole weekend off from work and was planning on working on mulching the camellia bed, but now I will start the day by planting the holly, then I will definately have some more mulching to do to extend the foundation mulch area out to where the new holly will be.

Guess I won't be doing any painting this weekend! Also, the weather is supposed to be in the low 70s until something like next Wednesday or Thursday, so I will definately take advantage of the good weather to work some more in my yard. Lots of people are wondering about what January and February will be like, afraid they will be VERY bad, since so far our winter has been so mild.

Looking like Christmas

I just realized that it has been quite some time since I've updated my blog. I have continued to work in the yard on the weekends (its too dark by the time I get home from work), mostly at this point trying to continue to clean up all the debris that was in the yard when I bought the house and work on adding some mulch.

I have made some strides cleaning out what was essentially a jungle behind the shack in the back. When I first started, you could barely walk back there and now I can pretty easily go most of the way around the shack. There are a bunch of tree saplings and privets back there and I am taking a wait and see approach to decide which ones stay and which ones go. I did get some more garbage hauled out of there, as well as a decent number of larger tree limbs. And, I even found some more bricks buried in the ground, which I dug out and used as part of the edging on my foundation planting.

I have continued to add mulch to the holly part of the foundation planting. I added another 2 bags as I found some weeds trying to grow up through the mulch. I need at least one more back to spread along the back.

I also decided that all my shrubs needed to be mulched. Currently I am using a light colored cyprus mulch in the front ($2/bag at Home Depot) but for the shrubs I decided to use the $2.29/bag mini pine bark nuggets. I spread 6 bags of the pine bark on my shrubs on Sunday and I still need probably 4 more to mulch in the rest of my camellias, as I want to basically make a camellia and hydrangea bed back there and mulch in the whole area. I also checked all my plants and I guess they are all doing well. All the evergreens are still green. I continue to have bulb foilage coming up in my pots and my pansies are blooming. I wonder if I need to feed them.

We got an email at work on Tuesday that one of the departments was giving away their old fake Christmas tree. So, we got ourselves a free fake tree. It is quite nice and I've now got it lit and got a few glass balls on it.

My mom put up the icicle lights on the front of the house a week or so ago and we both think they look nice. I'd like to find two wreaths for our two front windows, but so far I haven't been able to find exactly what I'm looking for, at least not at a decent price. I'm hoping to pick up something good at the After Christmas sales.

More yard work

I didn't quite feel up to going out to Bobbie's to get another holly to plant today, so no planting. I started my work in the yard today by installing the 3 pavers in a path from the water spigot. They worked out really well, except I think one might be a little thinner than the others, but I think they look good. After that I watered the shrubs as we are not expecting rain until Thursday. It was nice to be able to walk on the pavers instead of in a mud hole to get to the spigot, as the hose connection leaks pretty badly. I think this summer I may invest in a new hose. I have no idea how much water my shrubs need. I was thinking that the small pieris might not be looking quite as good as it could, don't know. Also, something has eaten a tiny bit at my tea olive. I really don't know how much water any of the shrubs need. The ones without leaves right now are the worst as I REALLY have no idea how they are doing or if they are even still alive.

On at least 1/2 of the plants you can still see the root ball area that was in the container. This is a tad concerning. I am most worried about the small beautyberry, as it has been in the ground for almost 2 months now and its top from the container is still VERY noticeable. The large beautyberry is doing much better in that respect, but it will still be months before I know if that plant is even alive.

I spent some more time in the yard trying to clean up some of the sticks, small branches and dead vines in the woodland garden. In the process, I found a number of additional bricks. I filled 2 large trash bags mainly with sticks and dead vines, as well as a little trash I found. Just as I was finishing up, I found even more bricks along the yard side of the shack. I was wondering if I know have enough bricks from what I dug up today to edge around the one tree in the front yard. Not sure what I want to do there... I will definately go back and get the bricks from the side of the shack. I noticed that my neighbor behind me also had a number of old bricks behind the falling down shack on the back of HIS property.

I am suspecting that some of the vines in the back might be honeysuckle, as there are some that are curled around the fence just like the honeysuckle is curled on field fencing. Terri had said some of the other vines were clemetis, but I haven't seen any of them bloom.

Today was nice and warm, almost 70, so we haven't turned the heat on at all today. Ususally I like the cold weather, but with having to keep my house so cold due to the gas prices, I am enjoying our still warm weather. I wish I was able to insulate the house right now, but unfortunately, I lack the budget for that right now. Currently my hope is that I will be able to insulate the attic before NEXT winter. I also would love to have the shack in the back torn down, but that too costs more money than I have right now, so I will just have to deal with it.

My major issue right now is to figure out some way to get the trash people to haul away all that plastic sheeting that I dragged up there last week and they left. We need to call the trash folks tomorrow and see if they will pick it up if we tell them about it.

I also have found some more scrap metal around the shack, but without a gate into my yard it is hard for anyone to get back there to pick stuff up. I have been collecting what I've found and when I get some more I'll call the scrap guys and see if they can come haul it away.

I have decided that it is a REALLY good thing I have my backyard all fenced in as my neighbor kids were telling me how they used to play in the "blue house" (the shack in the back) and how they were fixing it up. I can see how it would seem like the ideal place to play to little kids (and would probably have wanted to play in it myself as a child) but as an adult homeowner, it worries me as the shack is NOT SAFE! I did tell them the shack wasn't safe and they said that their dad had said the same thing. Again, glad there is now a fence between them and the shack. I would hate for anyone to get hurt on my property.

This coming week I work all week, then I'm out of town on the weekend, so I doubt much will get done around the house. We did go to our storage space today and bring a few things back with us. We really need to finish up the painting, move the paint out of the kitchen and get a wooden cabinet to use as a pantry. Then maybe we can put everything away and start really going through and getting rid of things.

Foundation planting, pt 1

Today I decided to work on my foundation planting, since I had the hollies and I haven't gotten any painting done. I got an early start today, before 9 AM. I got the three bigger hollies planted on one side of the walk, measuring to make sure that the trunk of each holly was the same distance from the porch (32 1/2 inches- not quite 1 yard but oh well...).


I planted one of the small hollies on the tree side of the walk. It is closer to the porch, but pretty much lines up with the hellabore on the other side of the tree.


I used all the mulch I had and it did not even come close to being enough to go around just the three hollies. So, it was back to Home Depot for 4 more bags of mulch. I also bought a bag of 45 crocus bulbs since they were all 1/2 off (the crocuses were the only ones that still looked decent) to put around the tree over on the line between my and Curtis's properties. After seeing Bobbie's pansies at her house yesterday I decided I had not purchased enough pansies and that my containers looked pretty sad, so I got 6 white and purple pansies to add to the pots. Then, while I was heading toward the bulbs I walked along the shade aisle and a rhododendron called out to me. It is an English Roseum and should bloom pink in May if it survives.

Back home with the mulch, I finished up mulching the three hollies and I think they look pretty good. Then I ran out of mulch trying to mulch on the tree side.

I had purchased the rhodie thinking it would be great to go along the area I just cleared in the back of the house, but when I got there the spot I was thinking of was in full afternoon sun, which will not work for a rhodie. So, instead I decided to plant it on the very edge of my woodland garden. I planted it as directed in several books, I scraped back the soil a little bit, set the plant on top and threw dirt over top and around it in a little sort of volcano. The plant's hang tag said to use basically pure peat moss, but a bag of that would have been more than the plant (rhodie- $6.97, peat moss- $9.95 on sale) so being the cheapskate that I am sometimes I decided to forgo the peat moss. Instead I used leftover soil I had from planting the hollies (which should be acidic) and added some Miracle Grow soil and a bunch of mushroom compost. I'm hoping the soil will be well drained enough but still acidic enough. We shall see...

I also planted the 45 crocus bulbs under the tree on the property line. Most of the bulbs seemed in pretty good shape to me so we will see if I get any flowers. They should be purple, yellow and white. I also added the 6 pansies, splitting them between several pots and added more soil to the one pot that I seemed to have really shorted on soil.

This evening I decided to go back out to Home Depot as I needed ONE MORE bag of mulch and I also wanted to go to a nursery to look for more of the large cabbages, as I thought they might look nice to put between the hollies temporarily to give it a more filled in look. My original plan was to go to Country Boys, as I thought they might be most likely to have the cabbages, but we somehow managed to overshoot them on the way up there. So, we went to Twin Bridge, where they did not have any big cabbages (or is it kale, who knows...). We did manage to find Country Boys on the way back home and they didn't have the cabbages either. So ended up at Home Depot getting the last bag of mulch and also 3 big pavers to make a little path to the water spicket. The hose leaks badly and is making a mess, and I am planning on adding some plants in the area, so figured I'd get the pavers now while the ground is freshly dug and the pavers are on sale. They each weigh 20 lbs and they are currently in the back of my car. I'm actually going to have to carry each one through the house to the back yard. YIKES!!

Tomorrow I have to work all day so I won't really have time to do anything in the yard or the house. My plan for Sunday is to finish up the mulch in the front of the house, set the pavers and try to get to Underwoods for 2 more cabbage.

Thanksgiving

So far during my days off for Thanksgiving I have not accoplished any of my painting goals. Yesterday I went over to Bobbie's house to help her leash break her puppies and then she gave me 5 hollies (some with berries) to start working on the foundation planting on the front of my house. So, I FINALLY got everything planted and now I have things to plant once again. I currently have the 3 large hollies set out front where I will plant them. We both think I need one more BIG holly to use as a corner plant. I would then like to put some firehouse nandinas in front of the hollies and maybe edge the whole thing with mondo grass.

This afternoon I went to Thanksgiving dinner at Bobbie's and when I got home I had initially thought I might try to get started planting the hollies, but instead decided to work some more on pulling crab grass. I had started pulling crab grass yesterday. My yard is over run with some sort of I'm guessing it is a weed that almost looks like a very green, slightly larger leafed version of the ajuga I have out front. I have assumed they were weeds and have been pulling them up. I do have some ENORMOUS crabgrasses on the side of the house that I keep meaning to attack, but have not gotten to yet.

After working on the weeds for a while I decided that instead of digging in the hollies, I would try to dig out the roots of the catalpa saplings I had hacked down along the back of the house. There were TONS of roots and some more sapling stumps I found as I was digging out roots. I got most of the surface stubs gone except for a few under some bags and two really big ones on the edge of the house that are near the water heater. I certainly didn't get all the roots, but in most of the area now there is at least nothing above the surface and probably nothing for at least 3 inches down. I need to go get some pine needles before the area becomes overrun with weeds. I think pine needles will be on my shopping list at Home Depot tomorrow.

With the arrival of the hollies, I have pretty much given up painting this weekend. I think tomorrow I will try to work on planting the hollies and try to get some pine needles spread.

Tomorrow is the delayed trash pick up, so this afternoon and evening I had to tackle the task of getting the 40+ bags of leaves in the back and side yards up to the trash collection area. Finally got them all moved, with mom helping me get them over the fences into the back yard. I can't wait for the trash to come tomorrow so I can have my back yard back, leaf and trash bag free!

Trying to adjust to the cold

This AM I was able to keep the heat at 65 while getting ready for work, but mom said she had been cold all night. I think she did okay as far as keeping the heat at 70 while she was home all day, but she did say she was cold. I think it will take some getting used to, as we have in the past probably kept our apartment at 73-74 in the winter and both of us like warm houses. But... neither of us wants a $400 gas bill so...

Hopefully everything will work out and we will be able to insulate the attic before too much longer. I really hope that will help keep the house warmer.

Today it sleated just a little bit and was cold all day. We are going to have more cold, wet weather tomorrow. YUCK.

Burr...

The forcasted snow did not arrive but the gas bill did. I've been worried about how much the gas would be as the estimate they had given me had been around $200/month. YIKES! The bill today was $99 and that was only through November 8th. That was really only about 2 weeks of us living in the apartment full time and there were some 70+ days in there. Now it is starting to get cold. To top it all off, I came home and found the thermostat set at 74. I had already decreed that we should never have it above 72 except in emergencies. Now I am going to change my plan, 65 when we are not home or sleeping and a MAX of 70 the rest of the time. I'm going to look into electric lap blankets and we can drink more hot cocoa and tea.

It is currently 70 in the house and the gas is not on. I turned in down to 65 while I was at the gym and the heat came on for a few minutes to get it back up to 70 once I upped it when I got home. Hopefully this plan will prevent the dreaded $400 gas bill. I'm afraid I might be stuck with a $200 one a few months as we just can't live in a house that is 65, we are both too cold natured. We could barely swing it but we sure won't be doing much around the house with those kind of gas bills, that will have to wait until it is warmer.

It is supposed to get down to 32 tonight. I am hoping that maybe this winter I will be able to scrape together enough money to get the attic insulated. I would HOPE that insulation would keep the house warmer and cut down on the gas bill, and maybe cut down on the electric bill for the AC in the summer too.