Thursday, June 18, 2009

befores and currents

I know I've been absent for a while now but I figured I wouldn't bore everyone with more of my gardening adventures. Actually, it's more like hacking away at our little jungle than gardening. Our privet hedge is a bit of a lost cause at the moment. We can't reach the top even with a ladder. It just bloomed so we can't chop at it for at least another month. It needs some renovation and a proper cut - it has a few bald spots and it's too top heavy.
Fernando going for the gold in Olympic gardening:

We have done a few things around the house but alas I have no photos at the moment. You'll just have to settle for more photos of stuff growing. Like my beans that went from this:

To this:
Yes - actual beans are growing on those stalks! I even ate the largest one and it was pretty tasty!

My Mom dug a few ferns up from a friend's yard for me. I had a harrowing experience when I picked them up involving a giant spider that had been hiding in the ferns running around the car while I was driving home from my mother's house. After eyeing the spider on the back seat (and Fernando missed swatting it, sending it running into the seat creases,) I actually drove back to my Mom's, took the ferns out of the car and drove home in a state of panic with Fernando manning a rolled up Elle Decor at the ready. When she brought them over for me the following weekend they were all shriveled up and brown. We planted them anyway, hoping that they would come back and luckily they've started to green up nicely. I also received a peony for my birthday that we planted in the center. I'm hoping it grows larger and hides some of that old pipe. It hasn't flowered yet and I'm thinking I'll have to do something to make it bloom next year. Research.

We hung two of the MYNTA planters from IKEA between the lattice on the sides of the front porch. I planted some lobelia inside but it's not doing too well. I'll probably switch it out for something else in a few weeks.

I started a little patch of garden up the side of the house. Currently there are a few sunflowers (more to come) and zucchini plants and one Moon and Stars watermelon plant. If these take off we'll have to walk up that path very carefully. I'm not that good with plant placement. I bought a few strawberry plants to add to this patch too as soon as it stops raining.

My window boxes went from this:

To this:

Close-up before:
Close-up current:
Even more blooms opened up today - I guess all of that rain is paying off. There is still so much to do in the front I'm hoping we get a few sunny days to work on it. I want to remove a huge yew growing in the center of the front yard. It's so random, large and mishapen - we certainly don't need it. Maybe add a brick path going up to the side of the house and some perrenial plantings around the path... more soon.

7 comments:

  1. Very nice, but enough of the plants! I want to see your kitchen! Surely you've made some progress since January.

    I need to see it so I can copy it. :)

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  2. What? do you mean you're not enjoying my new blog - get to plantin'? ;)
    Sadly no, we haven't made much more progress on the kitchen. I mean we've changed outlets and moved high hats and filled up some holes in the ceiling and hooked up the water for the dishwasher but nothing other than boring necessary stuff. Nothing worth taking photos of! Next weekend we are going to start working on it again... the bathrooms have been preoccupying our time lately. That and the jungle outside. ;0

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  3. Don't worry about the peony. They don't like being transplanted and take a year or two to recover and look the way they should. Next year or the year after it should be big and blooming!

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  4. Wait... does that mean you still don't have countertops??

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  5. Elissa - Thanks - I'm still hoping it blooms by next year. :)
    Anna - Yes it most certainly does - there are no countertops in our kitchen. We still have not built the half wall around the island to support the countertops. We had to move some electrical and even the plumbling over slightly before building it. I'm hoping to get the half wall in in the next two weeks, so we'll see from there.
    We've mostly been grilling food, or making things that don't require a ton of prep space. It's a lot like camping with appliances!

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  6. The garden looks great! I wish I had that many flower/vegetable beds to work with...
    I noticed with our garden that it has taken a good full year (2 even with some plants) for everything to fully 'settle' in.

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  7. I love to read about your gardening adventures. It's pretty interesting. Keep posting.

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