Spring Projects Anyone?

It's been a year since we started Projects threads - links to past threads:

Spring Projects - Show Us Yours! http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/965635/#new
Spring Projects now Summer Projects! http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1001085/
Spring/Summer/now Fall Projects...cont'd... http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1032854/
Fall/Winter Projects http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1049330/#post_7185164

I'm not sure about you but after the nasty winter Mother Nature threw at us I'm happy to see signs of Spring and it's time to get started on those projects! I started my "list" last fall and was anxious to get started with last week's gorgeous weather. The gardens were begging me to get out there and start cleaning up but I couldn't help myself and opted for starting on a few of the projects on my list instead. :)

First up was painting the lanterns I pulled from their posts last fall but never got around to painting and replacing before the cold winter hit. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=7354588 I've got them painted and they look great but over the winter I misplaced the screws to attach them so you'll have to wait for a picture :(

Second was the idea I've had in my head ever since last summer and the "design" has changed several times but I finally decided it was time to "git er done"! LOL We don't have a mailbox here and all we've had for a marker with our address number is a cheap plaque laid on the ground with numbers that kept sliding off when the sun melted them in the heat of the summer. The plan was to build a column/pedestal with cement blocks, face it with rocks from the creek and design some sort of stone plaque for the front using the "sliding" numbers. This is the design I came up with but it took some work to figure out how I was going to do it!

Rick said it was never going to work - he should know better by now - NEVER is not in my vocabulary! LOL We were at Lowes last week and he knew I was anxious to get started on this project and tried to encourage me to use tiles instead. Sure, there were some nice options but I didn't really want to spend any money on this project and I was convinced I could make it work with the free materials (rocks) I already had :) However, one thing I didn't have were black polished rocks so I did have to buy those at Walmart and also picked up another bag of a little larger polished rock - total investment so far...$7.00 :) I used a piece of thin styrofoam insulation we had on hand for a backer and started arranging the rocks. We also had thin strips of wood which I cut to size and painted black for the blades of grass. FIVE HOURS later, I was ready to get something to "glue" it all together - failed plan!! My idea was to just pour a thick coat of some type of epoxy over it to hold everything in place but I couldn't find a product which was weatherproof or recommended for outdoor use :( After all that work I was "almost" convinced that Rick was right, it would never work!

Plan B - a quick trip to Lowes the next morning to buy cement backerboard and Liquid Nails! I spread Liquid Nails on the backerboard and begrudgingly (is that a word? LOL) transferred all the stones, one by one, on my second attempt to reconstruct the design. It took me most of the day last Saturday and late in the afternoon, with one-third still left to transfer, I ran out of Liquid Nails :( I was back at it early Sunday morning after a quick trip to the hardware store and it was finally done by noon! It's still going to take a lot more work before the whole project is done but this is the plan. We're going to make a wood frame for it, paint it black and then treat the whole piece with some type of marine varnish, probably several coats to protect it. Next up is to get the column constructed. We have the cement blocks and mortar but I need to collect rocks to face it with from the creek. Last but not least, I still need to figure out how to mount the darned thing :( The dragonfly lantern I got for Christmas will be the last addition to the top - the outside battery operated candle which turns off/on automatically arrived yesterday so I'm ready!

I'm running out of time before we start to travel for shows and I still want to get my Clay Pot Lady done - looks like I better get busy!

Wow That looks great, just love it. Can't wait to see it completely finished and in place. We are still in cleanup mode and haven't started the outside projects but we will be soon. This cold damp weather is playing rough with Ric arthritics. Give us a couple of good sunny days and we will be moving RR Ties. We have three projects planed to start with and then maybe the GH we will see how far we get this year.

What a beautiful design, both in the closeup and as you plan to install it. Fantastic. All that work was worth it. It all ties together so nicely, and what a great way to announce your gardens.

Beautiful! Some of my ideas never come to fruition because I fear the time of the learning process. I think you prove, dive in and it'll git done . No Fear Art!

Very nice piece of stone design work.

As I said on the other projects thread--today on my agenda--is to fertilize and prune back my Roses . Need some mulch--don't have any! Well--those bags will exceed the 15-20lb. limit......I'll figure something out.....

Also am doing 3 loads of laundry. Lots of it has collected....

Yesterday at work just about killed me!
I took it upon myself to water ALLL the shrubs--big and small--in outside Garden. That took 2 hours--and then I had to "educate" a couple customers about seeding their lawns----convince them what was right and what was wrong....
That took another half an hour. My back and knees were killing me!!!! Standing upright for that long....does me in...

I have also decided that, as of April 11, I will be out there every Sunday for the whole day. Will set up my table and put up all my signs--and hang around and look "beautiful " and help customers out.
I know this will be hard on my bod--but I just want to be out here rather than sit in my "cage" and look out the big window.....Since I never used any of my pain pills after the surgery--I can pop one if I get hurting too much!
Me on Percocets and in garden...Haaaaa.....
My Mgr. wants me out there BOTH Sat. and Sun.--because it is "the season"------I told him "NO!"---One weekend day is all I am doing! I also told him that it is ALSO "The Season" at my house and Garden......:o)

OK! Gotta get going here......Gita

That is just beautiful!!! Great work.

Can anyone give me the name of the mail;-order company that has great Clematis?

A few years ago--there was a discussion on this place......I am looking for at least ONE nice Clematis. Have an empty spot with a small trellis just waiting for it.

Has anyone heard of the two "Estonian Clematis"???? I copied out pictures of it.....SOOO beautiful! No pictures or anything on these in PF. maybe I need the actual name of it.....Gotta find it!

OK! It is 2PM--and I am actually THINKING of going out and starting on all the roses.
Got 5 heavy/wet bags of Hardwood Mulch at Lowes.......Now I have to wait for some able-boddied man to come along to lift them out of my car......

OH, MY! This just reminded me of this funny forward picture that is really old.......
Will try to post a link here---I have it saved in my Faves!
Ignore all the other stuff--I had to go to Google to find it.....Just look at the picture!

http://www.funnies.com/theperfectman.htm

Gita

LOL cute picture Gita! You're making me tired just reading everything you've been doing and aren't you supposed to be taking it easy?

Thanks for the comments on my plaque, now I just have to figure out how to finish it! We took it over to the shop last night to start the frame, of course there's a few more problems :( My MIL saw it and thinks I should make them to sell - I don't think so! Unless I could make them a lot faster than this one I wouldn't be making much money on them. I'll keep you posted on my progress :)

rcn--

No one said I have to "take it easy"----I just am not supposed to lift more than 15-20lbs.
Everything else I have to do is OK....pruning, raking, fertilizing, etc.....
I am also plugging away at seriously pruning back my 2 BIG Burning Bushes that grow at the end of my patio. Nice privacy screen....I am pruning these by hand--one branch/stem at a time! Lot of hard gripping with the pruner!

Probably violated the lifting thing yesterday------I slid the mulch bags from the back of the car unto my wheelbarrow and then wheeled it to the back and tipped the wheelbarrow and slid the bags to the ground.....Two bags per trip---but it WAS very heavy to wheel it to the back......Probably counted as "lifting"....Oh well.....

Rainy and cool today! Gonna do some inside stuff.......Have to still seed my Zinnias and marigolds and a few other "quick-up" seeds.....Need to vacuum the house---it is beyond "YUK"!

Gita

Well we haven't started much yet but today we picked up a load of sand for the gazebo. Hoping to start on that next week.

Hope youse guys are fellin better!!!

Thanks Jan Yes we are coming along. We aren't setting the world on fire but we are getting better and are doing more.
Well the new load of sand was put to good use today, even had some heavy equipment in to move some of it around. LOL

I could use some heavy equipment like that. ^_^

I'd love to have some of that "heavy equipment" around here - think they could pull weeds? LOL

I've switched gears with my projects - the building of the column is too much to tackle in this heat so I've moved under the deck and working in the shade! After many, many years (15?) we finally got the rest of the siding on the walls below the deck and in my "spare" time I've been painting it, an hour here and there. I thought I had another gallon of paint left from when the house was painted but discovered it was actually the dark green trim paint when I ran out yesterday :( Planning to pick up another gallon soon but in the meantime one wall is finished so I'm getting the area prepared for some planting I want to do there. Not an easy task digging it up, years of compacted soil! We had a small area of pavers where the hose attaches to the wall but over the years they had sunk - lesson learned, do it right the first time! I hid from the sun/heat yesterday and got that area dug, landscape cloth laid and filled with crushed rocks. I've got four more pavers to get in but I ran out of steam late yesterday. Hoping to finish that later this afternoon and then start digging for the planting of Hostas and Ferns. The Hostas I've chosen are barely popping from the pots and I'd like to get them in the ground before the leaves start showing! I've also discovered that Lucy is not "Hosta friendly" - have already seen a few snapped in the gardens from her racing through :( When I go to pick up my paint I'm going to get some fencing to keep her from running through this garden! LOL

A little off topic. But RCN remember that discussion on how to hang pictures. You or someone said you were to cut paper to the size of your picture and then tape it to the wall to see if you like the pattern? Well Ric tried his own version of that today. Just wanted you to see this. LOL

LMAO! Hey, whatever works, right? :)

Leave it to a man.
My hubby seems to think yellow is a neutral wall color
I am still tweaking the native-stone (sounds better than "rocks we find when digging or scrounge at the construction site") borders on some of my beds. That tweaking could go on for years. I enjoy finding rocks that just seems to fit perfectly next to each other. Guess I am easy to entertain, sometimes.

I need to find a place i could cop some rocks from--also for edging along a short section of my front bed==as the PLD RR ties are disintegrating....
NOT allowed to go down to the Gunpowder River and take any....booo...hooo it is a Park.

I should just keep a pair of strong gloves in my car--in case i come across a construction site.....yes!

Mercy...........I live on endless miles of private and public mountains. Permission is by permit on the public parts of the mountains. It's a few dollars a ton help yourself and no one checks the picker unless one becomes a hog and looks like a commercial venture. Ask your folks of authority where you might find rock and how to get a picking permit. The Appalachian Chain of mountains are all rocks. If you can see the mountain you are looking at gazillions of rocks. The only other option is to purchase them from lawn and garden centers. Construction sites for me are by chance only. There is not that much going on in construction at this time in our area.

Gita, Want rocks come to lunch, we can fix you up, and you can pick them, and I will put the in your car for you. Ric

Thanks Ric---Who's going to take them out of my car?????

The thing is--I may need just 8-10 rocks--if that many--about the size of a gallon bottle--plus some to fill in the cracks....
Surely--I must know someone right here-- in Harford Co. maybe--that has some rocks......

G.

Gita, getting them out of the car shouldn't be a problem. Prop the back hatch open, back into the driveway very quickly, and slam on the brakes. Picking them up or repairing the house my be a different matter.LOL Ric

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!

Like the commercial on TV where the 3 guys have a killer Whale in their truck and they are driving to return it to the water....Have you seen this?
The driver speeds up to the end of the pier--slams on his brakes--does a "wheelie" and the whale gets tossed back into the water and swims away.

G.

Well we are getting closer to actually building something. LOL We did another Brick run today and picked up 820 used bricks. Think that will be all for awhile. We will see how far they will go. I have about 5 pallets of bricks now. Some for the expanded Gazebo floor and the rest for the driveway a walk down to the barn and maybe if there are still some left to use in the GH.

I got back and started to unload my brick and kept wondering why I ran out of weight capicity, I was sure I'd gotten 1000 before, (wishful thinking apparently), and only got 820 on board. Turns out I only got 500 last time. LOL Ric

I went out to see what Holly was up to and found her enlarging the mulched area under the conifers out front. She had said she was going to just lasagna it, rather that remove the sod. So she found a rather novel use for a box of old Playboys from the garage. She said she was playing find the centerfold. LOL Ric

Just being down right nosey. Three years ago I paid only ten cents apiece for 1880 really nice clean brick. Our patio looks 1880. You folks are much closer to urban users. The demand may be greater. What did you have to pay for your second hand brick? We had to pick, hand load and haul them about fifteen miles one way. Those stone weighed about four to five hundred pounds each. They were machine loaded to our trailer and machine delivered to the patio edge. We took it from there.

There are between five and six thousand 1880 - 1885 brick in this patio floor surface. Approximate size overall is 18' X 30'. The slate is local 2 1/2" random blue stone. Five pieces like the one shown cost nearly as much as the brick. We were pleased to end up featuring locally made brick and local natural blue stone slate. The laruel was planted thirty years ago with this in mind. They make the spot private right in the middle of surburban neighbors.

This message was edited Apr 11, 2010 10:29 AM

Hey Doc 2 years ago when we bricked the first part of the Gazebo floor we paid 20 cents apiece. They had been machine cleaned and on pallets and they loaded them right into our truck. They are in very good condition don't really look much like used brick. Ric decided that it would be cheaper to rent a U Haul to pick them all up in one trip rather than make several trips to get them. They were rather faraway. We figured that with the rental they cost us 30 cents apiece.
The ones we picked up last year and then on Sat came from RIc's cousin. He has a tree removal business and does other landscaping jobs. These bricks came from a driveway/parking area the woman wanted cobble stone pavers put in. Mike just dumped the brick in a pile at the back of Uncles yard and we had to pick though the pile and hand load them. He didn't set a price on them but Ric has been looking and thought 20 cents apiece was a fair price.
15/20 years ago when we bricked the patio we only paid about 2cents a piece for them.

Thanks............I enjoy picking up tid bits of information like that.

Here we have a 30,000 person city of Williamsport, a fairly large river valley surburban community and a lot of farming of which much is Dutch owned and managed. The Dutch pick our brick piles and the rest gets ground up for foundation and bed mulch. They use those brick for farm structures and walkways. You have heard jolks about brick s___t houses. Well the truth is a brick s__t house is a thermal mass that gathers heat and is appreciated even more as the winter breaks into summer. Every farm has one even if not brick. They have no plumbing and no common utilities. Some orders now permit their sons to own and drive cars.

I think this is the year I get my glider done. Paul bought his sandblaster for the compressor and has it all apart and has the old paint blasted off it. Is repairing the pot marks and rust spots.
We are getting it back to the 50's look, white frame, red seat and back.

I painted it Almond and stenciled Ivy leaves on it when we first got it. Looked pretty for a few years. Time for a change.

Hey that furniture will be nice once again. That design came out I think in about the late 1950's. Don't think a better design has be achieved in steel since that one came out. They tweeked it a little but no major changes. We had until just recently some hand me downs from my home which was built in 1947. Those chairs came in after that. Mom had cushons on them. We never did anything but hose off the chairs a couple times a summer. We had all singles plain Janes with no nice painting accent.

Doc, you are right 1950's. There is a stamp in the metal, made in Fort Smith, AR. I think is said Island company, have to do more research.
Some renters or ours left it on the property, when the trailer burnt. So when they did not come back to get it, it was mine.
There is a chanel in each seat for water run off. But the glider was left out in the elements and dirt build up in the channles and rust set in, I keep it up on the roofed deck for added protection.

Is your mail box on a post/pedestal that's not showing in the photo? It looks as if it's hanging in mid air..love the idea of the stone front. What is the frame made of? Did I miss something in your posting?

I put this on another post as well. Just trying to let you know this exists.....

Thought i would post the link below. it is from the Brugmansia Forum and deals with all aspects of "THE RECIPE"--a home-made mix of an amazing fertilizer. Have any of you ever hear of this???
It has been going around for a while--but it popped up again on my "watched" list...

Hope you have time to read through it...this link is Part #2--or maybe #3? Previous link provided at the top--as usual...
Gita

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/956114/#new

I do not wish to be argumentative but "THE RECIPE" and "ALL" of the associated recipes are almost all harsh man made fertilizers with just enough organic content to tease your mind. I personally would not use any of these recipes. To me it is like drinking. If you have to add celery and tomato juice to cover the poison something is wrong.

There are many many fine organic and biologically sound fertilizers available to any serious enquiring mind. By this time most regulars here should know the difference at a glance.

All of those recipes will grow plants not necessarily plants in good condition. None of those recipes will improve your soil. They may even harm your existing biology. The last sentence is gentle for me. I believe firmly that no small time gardener need to play with any of the harsh combination fertilizers. The choice is yours of course. I have not messed with that stuff for over forty years.

doc--

Well put! I have never used this--but since so many people "raved" about it--I thought i would post the link....
Your input is always welcome--at least to me....

Gita

Ladyg, I'm really looking forward to seeing your glider when you are finished with it.
I just realized that I didn't post an after pic of the extended mulched area under the pines.

Ric has started on the Gazebo floor. We are adding a couple more feet around and larger flower beds in the corner. He removed the sod on one side and started to dig down to place the first RR tie. He hit a huge rock. Many of you have seen the rocks we have that were pulled out of the neighbors when they built their home. Yep it is one of those rocks. Well after spending some time with a digging iron and a hand chisel he did chip enough of it away to get the RR Tie level with the existing floor. He has three more sides to do hopefully we won't find anymore of these in the way.