spring projects.....

This is the time of the year when we start or already started to think about "what is my next project?"In my case it was easy to figure out . The city has installed new sidewalks and my flower beds have lost few feet to concrete. I was able to save some of the plants and some just got lost in the concrete or the dirt. Now that I know where the city bounderies are, I have decided that the front yard needs a new look and in the process updated beds . This past week end I started to lay the ground work for this project by setting post, lines and also stones for the future flower bed...this is going to be a project . Between the sidewalk and the future bed my daffodils are popping all over the place, nobody told them that it was not a flower bed anymore so I have to dig them up and give them a new home in the new bed which will be permanent . After 70 years the city decided to have sidewalks , I actually like them because I do not have to walk on the street at night with Josh (my dog)...So what is your project?

here is a picture of my project. As you can see the daffodils are showing up all over the place, I have to move the red hot pokers they are sitting on the ground, I also have to move the shasta daisy and a wild Hibiscus.. I have my work cut out....Today was too cold for me to work outside...

Hi, orchidfancy!
Yes it looks like quite a project there! I'll look forward to your updates.
I'm totally at loose ends as to what my project might be. I haven't had any major yard changes, but last year got more dedicated to keeping a neater look, and building the soil. I'll be refining my perennial bed layout which had some change after some nice swap plants last spring, and a new birdhouse. (nice new sprouts on new york aster, greenthumb)
I'd also like to play with a new solar powered fountain in a small new water feature of some kind.
It did stay kind of cool today.

Orchidfancy, I was thinking about your gardens the other day. I remember back last year when you were digging up plants in preparation for the sidewalks. Ric and I have a new Greenhouse to get up and there is still the big Pergola in the driveway area that still needs done. I too am looking forward to seeing more pics of your garden as you make your changes.

Ric and I were out in the Veggie Garden yesterday. We moved the Chickies pen to a different location as it would be in the way as we work on the GH. Also did some clean up in the corral area which is behind where the GH will go and need to make space to bring in the trailer with the GH on it.

Holly I have not forgotten you might want some strawberries (Tribute or Tristar, everbearing)--If a box of them shows up on your doorstep some random day can you take them in? I'm bad on planning but with the next couple nice days might pull some plants and pack them. You could dmail me your address, I am not sure I have it.

Looking forward pics with all of the stages, Holly and Orchid. Today, I think we'll hook up some of the hoses that are sprawled on the floor in the shed. Can't get around with all those hoses in the way. My hope is to clean up at least 2 more beds and to collect some small branches with multi twigs which I will use for trellises in the small pots where my vine seedlings are growing.

If I still have some energy when I'm done with this, I need to clean up that back room in the basement where I do my seeding and transplanting. Water all over the floor should be dry by then so I can vac up the dried up dirt. (muddy now).

An early start with freshen up all the pots would be a good idea also. List goes on and on.

When the 8 yards of amended soil arrives (next week) we will be topping off all the beds. This will keep us busy for al while.

Spring projects! I have a number of them in mind... we'll see how they go! Right now, I'm waiting to get past this virus/bronchitis/whatever nonsense so I can do stuff again, and the first thing on the list is to get a handyman over here to help me install some new kitchen cabinets, which are currently sitting in boxes in the living room... not an ideal situation, LOL, but sometimes things come to a screeching halt when you get sick.

Orchidfancy, if you might want some new oriental lilies or other things from Sunshine Bulbs, check out the thread I started for a possible group order: http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1164932/

Don't let that lingering thing get you down, Jill. That group buy that you are offering sounds like a good idea for those that you will be seeing soon. I would join in if I were closer. Onewish did the same thing with a group buy, and the shipping cost was next to nothing for us. Hopefully, she will continue to do this. We will compensate her with huge hugs and kisses and maybe a stray plant or two.

YEAH, I have a hole in my Veggie Garden and a new flower bed.
Ric went down and dug the footprint for the foundation pad for the GH yesterday and since he had to do something with the good dirt that came out of the Veggie Garden we made a new small raised bed, too. The flower bed is a rounded off triangle approx 13ft long and 9ft at the widest point. It incorporates a small existing bed with the crape myrtle, some tall sedums a few echies the hummer feeder, then reaches out to include a hydrangea, Dwarf Bottlebrush and an Ascot Rainbow Euphorbia. Doesn't look like much right now.

Veggie garden is pretty messy right now but here is where the GH will sit. To the right is the fenced lower yard for the dog. To the left is that long flower bed I put in last year that runs along the edge of the Veggie Garden and the path down to the barn. That is the side of the house in front. Since we haven't been planting all of the Veggie Garden area the GH will fit right in here. There will be a narrow brick walk down to the GH with Veggies growing on each side of the path.

Looks awesome Holly.

Way cool!

Update on the front flower bed. This week end I planted some of the daffodils that were popping up along side of the sidewalk on which the city had dumped the dirt including the dirt in the previous flower bed. I dug up 2 cart full of white daffodils so if anyone is interested let me know I would be more than glad to share a few. Other than the the daffodils I transplanted some columbines and some larkspurs that were growing somewhere else and I thought that they would look nice with the columbines also some crocus who had found their way between some bricks . I have several clumps of shasta daisy that I am in the process to find a home somewhere in the yard . At this point I am basically moving a lots of things around. Eventually it will be nice.....

That is really starting to look good. By the end of the summer you will never even know it was all dug up.

I am so very excited. Ric and I sat down and planed out the GH this morning. Placement of the benches, water line and electric service. We will be getting a load of stone and framing lumber this week and hopefully weather permitting the slab will be poured the first week in April. Ric has been cleaning out and organizing the barn. Making room for the GH to be brought in unpacked and stored in a protected area. It has been on Josh's back porch unopened since last fall. There will also be space for the pergola lumber that we will pick up as soon as HD or Lowes puts on a sale of pressure treated wood.

WOW Yeay!

HD a sale????? Dream on!!!! They do not have too many sales....
Nor do they offer an emplyee discount. Never have--never will!
Does Lowes??? I have heard they do--10%. True? False?

I don't think PT wood has ever gone on sale @ HD---except the landscape timbers.....
Don't believe that everything in their Circular means it is on "sale".
It is more like a "Featured" product.

PT 4x4's are $7.97 at both places...
I like Lows' better on these--as the edges of their 4x4's are beveled.
HD's are just cut straight. Ugly!

I also learned from a contractor that there are grades of PT wood.
If it is to go into the ground--it should NOT be less than a Grade #4.
Whatever that means--but it is, supposedly,m stamped on the wood--somewhere...

Gita
edited to correct the price of the 4x4's--they ate $7.97

This message was edited Mar 30, 2011 5:10 PM

Ric is going project crazy. I swear he has 5 different things going at one time. LOL He came home from Josh's with a load of lumber for a couple of arbors he wants to build, and a load of landscaping timbers that was on sale at Lowes. He just came up from the barn where he racked all the wood. He built me a great flats bench the other day. It is 8 1/2ft long has two shelves and will hold 15 flats. It has a lattice top that will hold hanging baskets. It will sit in the driveway next to the potting shed. I will post pics as soon as I get it stained. Just waiting for a little warmer weather.

Holly, you guys make me wish that I was 15 years younger again. At this point, I just get excited vicariously when I hear about your projects. Can't wait to see your pictures til the weather gets warmer. Let's see some of him actually in the process, even though we can picture him without the actual photos. Your new flats bench warrants a picture, I'm sure. We probably will have no more big projects going (except for the big pile of amended soil in the driveway).

Distributing the soil, digging and planting and just keeping up with what we already have is the best we can do.

RRR, how is your arm? Sounds like it healed well with all that you are doing.

Ric is definitely a keeper, Holly

Roses, I know just what you mean. I wonder sometimes as I am adding new or bigger flower beds, Am I going to be able to be able to maintain all this in a few years?

Jan, my arm is doing very well. Dr. says in May (one year surgery anniversary) it will be as good as it gets. Gardening and using cast iron pots to cook with is occupational therapy at its best. I think that after one year, you get so used to it that it seems fine. Although, it feels very different than the other wrist and hand. Thanks for asking.

Holly, you have a long way to go yet.

I am re-thinking something after drooling over a photo Holly posted of her new semp collection...

I'm planning to put in a little gravel "pad" area in the back right corner of the lawn... will dig in a little pondform to use as a bubbler bog there, have enough room for a bench and space to put some of the larger potted plants that were just hanging out under my chopped-short willow last year.

I was going to edge the gravel area with bread-loaf sized rocks or with "castle rock" concrete blocks.. but it occurs to me that if I used cinder blocks, the kind with holes down the center, I could fill the holes with potting mix & moisture crystals and plant them with creeping thyme, sedum, semps, etc...

At first I thought, oh but then I would have to get some concrete stain for the blocks, but actually if I get them planted and use some trailing plants, I think they won't look bad at all, especially if I use a light pea gravel behind them.

thoughts?

someone on, I think, Vegetable forum has a thread about her "Holes' and what to plant in her cinder block bed edging. She used diluted, sand-colored latex paint to tone down the block look and it's not half bad. I have some blue-cedar-looking creeping sedum , plenty of it, that would crawl down the face of the block in one season.

I have seen cinderblocks done that way and they can look pretty attractive. I like the idea of painting them. If you wanted to get really creative you could tile the front of them maybe a mosaic.

Glad to hear about your arm, RRR. Occupational therapy indeed. :)

That sounds like a great idea, Critter.

Well here's a project that created a project for me to do.
Hubby needed to make a mini driveway to get his trailer in the back yard....started by getting a wider gate, then had a friend's brother come in to dig and do the gravel

before pic

The guys digging out the dirt

After

So with all the dirt they dug out, I had them create a berm for me on the property line on the other side of the house, so now I have to dig a trench around it, plant some things and mulch it

Cool beans, Jen! Your yard is flat like mine. I think you'll like having some kind of slope to play with. Needless to say any time we can get a pile of fresh dirt, its a good time.

Such fun to start with a clean slate Jen. We will start posting our offerings for the swap soon which means you will have a nice selection. Of course we will need to know your "color scheme". Are you going to put shrubs in there or just plants? Will you arrange them with taller in the center with a gradual lessening of height as you come to the perimeter?

Good idea to use latex paint... that would be less of a "project" than using that caustic concrete stain.

I like your new berm, Jen! And I'm a little envious of the fact that you can dig up your yard and get some dirt that actually looks decent. Here, the first couple inches are probably OK by now, but it gets down to serious clay pretty fast.

Nice Jen, I was thinking how nice that new drive looks and you could do a little something out there as well. I don't think I ever saw that body of water across the street from your house. Looks like a nice view.

I thought I had an idea of what I wanted to do there, now I'm being very indecisive. I was thinking a mixed border, I had a plan that I did awhile ago that I need to review to see if I still like it(my tastes may have changed)LOL
I was thinking high in the middle about 10-12', witch hazel or weeping red bud and then some confiers and mixed perennials and bulbs...I'm leaning toward burgandy/maroon, peach and cream

That side where the new drive went was where I was going to do the rock garden but hubby needed it that wide to get the trailer back there.I don't want to plant anything near it just in case he ever runs off the path while backing in.

The water across the street is manmade pond for the 55+ development, they have fountains in it during the summer

Ok so here is the new flats bench Ric built me. There is enough space under it to store bales of pro mix or large pots. It still gets a flat lattice top put on. It is 8 1/2 ft long and will hold 15 flats. We can hang a few hanging baskets on the uprights but I might have Ric add a pole across the top so I can hang more of them if I need to.

It is made from scrap wood, sits right next to the potting shed in the driveway.

Haven't been around much lately -- life gets in the way. Just cruising some threads while I load my ipod for the week.

Holly -- that is a great bench. Ric is so talented. We don't have any scrap wood that looks that good. Our scrap wood just looks like . . . scraps . . . .

I'll be watching to see pictures of the greenhouse!