Josh's House

Holly,

Glad you posted new photo's. I hadn't found this thread. How
cool that house is! You are building great memories
as well as gardens for him. I'm really enjoying reading about
his house & gardens!

Tam

Holly I am really enjoying the make over pictures. I'm sure the neighbors are enjoying it too.

Wow, what a difference, Holly! That's going to be a beautiful yard when you all get done.

That red sandstone church reminds me of the old, old houses in my hometown, Manassas.

Wow, Holly Josh has really been busy, not to mention his dear mom. Looks absolutely great. He's done a wonderful job. Bet the neighbors are really impressed that a single guy would do all of that.

His neighbors love him. LOL The one next door is a co-worker and friend with our neighbors here, so they knew all about him before he moved in. The fact that he is always willing to lend a hand is always a plus in the neighborhood and the kids think he is great. Right now he is working on his fence. The previous owners built a nice wood fence but they didn't finish it. He wanted to get the yard completely fenced so his sister can bring her new dog down and not worry about it getting out on the street.
Hart, I'll get a couple of good shots of that church the next time I go down there.

Hart, Here are a couple of pics of that church.

and from the front.

His pond is looking very good. A friend gave him some good sized fish and he has tons of babies. There is a water lily, water lettuce and a few extra water loving plants from my house. He had some extra stone slabs laying around and made a small low stone bench for next to the pond and acquired an old tractor seat that he put close to the bench to sit on as well. I took my copper butterfly sprinkler down there one day for the kids to play with and it never did come back home you can see it in this picture behind the bench. He finished fencing the yard, added two more gates and matched the custom made fence that the previous owners had started. You can see the new section of fence in the background by the shed.

He is in the process of rehabbing an old hand pump. Did a good job of making it look nice but wasn't enough for him. He wants it to work, too. He has gotten most of the parts he needs to get it working I think all that is left for him to pick up is the pipe. One of the reasons he finished the fence was so he could babysit his sisters dog but once the fence was finished and his sisters dog back home he decided that it was time to find one for himself. Here is Cody standing next to the rehabbed hand pump.

I put together a couple of these hanging baskets for the back porch. Caladiums and begonias.

Unfortunately the caladiums didn't grow quite as well in the bed under the tree. Next year I will put impatiens and more caladium bulbs in this bed. Josh picked up 2 of the big wheels, they are about 4 ft high and one sits here the other one against the tree near the pond.

I put a mix of cannas, persian shield and coleus in the big pots. I should have a better pic of them somewhere but I'm not finding them. His banana tree was moved out and re potted into a half whiskey barrel and it grew wonderfully and is putting out a pup or two. You can see one of the pots in the background of this pic.

Boy that all looks great! Is there a cistern under the old pump? I'd love to have a sunken rain barrel system and hand pump.

Not sure exactly what is there. There is a concrete cistern but it is dry not full of water and there is a well of some sort under the cistern that he is going to hook the hand pump into. There is a big hatch that opens in the top of the cistern with a big old metal pull ring and beside that is the hole that the hand pump runs thru.

All sounds very cool and explorable. Unless there is a bunch of spider webs. I am not fraid of snakes much but spider webs in dark places are too yucky !

The one time I looked in it was pretty clean. Although Josh had already been down there so I don't know what it looked like before.

Holly, Josh's pond looks great. I love the picture with the church in the background.

My pond is still going but was unable to keep up with the algae, but the frogs loved it, I counted at least 9 frogs one day.

Beautiful Holly!!