Well, after many failed attempts I am sad to say I still have not been able to add a video to my blog. I have no idea what is going on with that, but back to my topic for the week.
I have never had much of green thumb and never really cared about plants and flowers until I got a house. After about a year of living here I got tired of staring at what seemed to be just a field of grass. I had received a catalog in the mail for ordering flowers so I decided to purchase some with the money we got back for our first time home buyer's tax credit. I think the total cost was about $90.00 for about 30 plants. We ordered Azaleas, lilacs, hydrangeas, maple trees, and some other bushes that I don't even remember the names of. Well we got the flowers in a tube about three weeks later. I opened the tube to find a bunch of twigs and very brief descriptions of what the twigs were. So I proceeded to plant my twigs in the yards over the course of a week. I was so excited and ready to see some results. It is now about 7 months later and the only things that grew were two Azalea bushes and three hyacinth bushes that were supposed to be white hydrangeas. Needless to say I was disappointed. So, my neighbor came over and gave me a bucket of daffodil bulbs from his garden. My husband plowed the ground to prep it for the daffodils and I spent an entire day planting the bucket of bulbs. Those have already begun to grow, and I have recovered from the sunburns and mosquito bites, so I am looking forward to seeing what the yard will look like in the spring.
We also bought white chipped marble using some of our return money to be used to replace the mulch in the flower beds that lined the house. I removed all of the mulch there (I am afraid we will get termites) and began laying fabric and pouring the rock one bag at a time along the side of the house. I got one side of the house done and ran out of rock. We had already used up the portion of the budget set aside for landscaping so I had to stop. It looks funny but eventually I will get it all done. And that brings me to weeds.
Where do all of those weeds come from!!! I pluck weeds every week or so when I have the time and it amazes me how quickly they come poking up again, especially now that there is no ground cover in those flower beds by the house because I went nuts getting all the mulch away from the house.
Meanwhile my husband has had his own battles with the yard. When we got the house we were so excited about the whole 1.2 acres of land that we forgot about the fact that we did not have a lawn mower. My dad gave us his push mower to use until we could get the funds to buy our own rider. Well midway through the summer it got so hot that my husband was only mowing one section of the yard at a time and by the time he finished all of the sections it was about time to start over again. I felt terrible for him and offered to help but he wouldn't let me. Our neighbor must have felt sorry for him too so he offered to let us use his riding mower for the rest of the summer.
We have more plans to plant more flowers around the house when we figure out what is going to grow from the first batch and what is not, and of course finish the rock around the house. We have now realized that this all can't be accomplished in one summer like I had hoped but rather it will most likely take several summers to get it the way we want it. We did manage to get the horseshoe pits up as well so we can have something to do in the "beautiful" yard during our spare time...I think we played a total of 5 times since we got it all set up. Oh well there is always next summer!
Next week, decorating~
Thanks for reading,
Jennifer Shoemaker
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My wife and I have spent the past two summers trying to make our yard look nice. In 2006, we had a sunroom and deck added to our house, so we have been trying to make the landscaping match our house remodel. We used 200+ landscaping bricks around many of the trees and planters along the front of the house and around the deck. We decided on using mulch, and it has looked nice for the past two years. Our weeds are not too bad; we put down plenty of weed barrier fabric. The weeds do tend to pop up quickly. The roots of the weeds grow on top of the fabric, and they are easily removed. One added bonus is the extra space of the planters has really cut my grass mowing time in half. We still want to do a whole lot more with our yard. We have
ReplyDeleteJennifer, I really enjoyed reading your blog. This is the kind of blog that will eventually inspire me to get off of the couch and plant something when spring comes. I didn't get why your plants were in "tubes"? did you order them or something? I go to Lowes and Home Depot all summer and dream of what I would love my yard to look like; but it's too big and I'm too busy to concentrate on it. Keep up the good work. Oh..and remember that perenials come back year after year and are worth the investment. Decorating next????
ReplyDeleteHey Jennifer. It's appropriate that I read your blog because my favorite houseplant is suffering right now. We've had it for about 4 or 5 years and it's beginning to look poor.
ReplyDeleteYardwork can definitely be a challenge. I can remember mowing with a push-mower and weed-wacking the bank behind my house - and having alot of trouble doing it. I slipped and fell a few times, but it goes without saying to wear goggles and pants because you're going to get pelted!
Hi Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteWhile you're trying to plant life. I'm trying to choke it out. I've got a small strip of soil on the patio of my townhouse and I put river stones over it to choke out the weeds and to make it look somewhat decorative. Prior to pouring the rocks on the bed of soil I sprayed a whole bottle of weed killer that was actually supposed to be strong enough to kill any plant life. Basically we just want the white river rock look and we were going to place potted plants on top of the river rock bed. Well... It's not happening. No matter how much I spray the weeds keep growing and have even managed to make it through the plastic that was placed between the bed and the rocks. Needless to say I'm frustrated. Good luck with the green thumb.
Ah... landscaping. I have a ton to do for my house however I am just waiting for the weather to get warm enough. Fortunately I don't have to plant flowers. I only need to put down cedar chips and plant 2 bushes this year. Good job on your blog!
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