Plant Killer

I've never really had a green thumb.  I have killed boxwoods (yes, multiple), rose bushes, and even an aloe plant.  I eventually gave up trying to have house plants.  It was cruel to the plants.  I'm sure my paternal grandparents are looking down on me with disgust and shame.  They owned a plant nursery for many years.  They also owned a successful daylily business and had a yard that was full of daylilies and irises.  Both of my parents worked at the nursery and could grow most any plant.

 

I was determined to plant something and keep it alive for more than a few weeks.  I'm likely moving in a couple of months, so I didn't want to plant anything in the ground.  I've always enjoyed containers of plants and had many containers beckoning for plant life.  Memorial Day weekend turned out to be a good time to fill the planters.

 

I headed to Home Depot and purchased about $75 worth of plants and soil.  Once I unloaded the goodies from my car, I got to work in the courtyard.  I started by cleaning my planters and then finding some stones and things to use for drainage.  I had a broken flower pot that I broke into more pieces and used in the bottom of my containers.  This allows the soil to drain and keeps the roots from rotting.

 

I bought a few plants that enjoyed the shade because I wanted a planter near the backdoor and the area is fairly shady.  I wasn't really sure how to decide which plants would work together, so I just grabbed several that had the shade designation and hoped for the best.  I filled the planter with soil and added the plants and then finished with a heavy watering.

 

This photo was taken right after I finished.

I made sure to water the plants every few days.  I was shocked I kept them alive!  They even grew!

This photo was taken a week later.  Look at how much the plants filled in!

I need to get another photo.  The plants don't seem quite as full as the week after photo, but they've continued to get larger.  I'm pleased with myself.  I really don't enjoy watering the planters because I also feed the mosquitos while I'm outside.  Annabelle also feels it is her job to drink the water from the hose while I'm watering the plants.  She does whatever she can to get to the water.  I try to position the sprayer so both Anne and the plants get water.

I filled four other planters that day with sun-loving plants.  I'm not as proud of those.  I don't know why, though.  I think I may not like the flowers in them as much as the shade flowers.  They're still alive and doing well so I'm pleased.

I appreciate a nicely landscaped yard.  I plan to make my next yard a lovely plant filled oasis.  I cannot wait!

Leaves are evil

Our yard has trees. Most of the time, this isn't a problem. Throughout the autumn season, the trees shed their leaves and pine needles (pine straw). The first autumn we were in this house, we raked the yard a couple of times, but grew frustrated that more leaves would fall shortly after we raked. Last year, we just didn't rake. A man came through the neighborhood and asked if we would pay him to rake our yard. We happily obliged. He earned his money that day. The house literally looked abandoned. It was horrible.

This year, we kept up with the raking. We raked it three times before raking it yesterday. Sometimes, I would stop working and stare up at the leaves still attached to the trees and think about how they would fall and need to be raked. It was also lovely to be raking and see a steady parade of leaves falling to the ground in an already raked area. In my opinion, the worst part about raking is the bagging. In order for the yard trash to be picked up by the county, we have to bag it.

Prior to today, we raked the yard manually using rakes. Today, we tried using the leaf blower. That worked fairly well for the leaves, but I still had to go behind Justin and rake the pine needles. The pine needles were a snap once those pesky leaves were gone.

I took these photos this afternoon at about 5:30 p.m. They're kind of dark since the sun was quickly setting. The bare driveway is the biggest change. The leaves had covered the driveway to the point that you literally couldn't tell if you were driving on driveway or yard. Parking on the parking pad was loads of fun, too. I can't count the number of times I had to re-park my car after getting out and realizing I was either on the grass or in the middle of the pad and crooked to the point that it was embarrassing.
We weren't able to completely finish the front yard since that darned sun decided to set. The nerve.

When my sister was here last week, she commented that she thought her yard had a lot of leaves. You can see a distinct line where we stopped raking for the evening. The entire yard and driveway looked like this unraked portion of yard. I promise I'm not exaggerating.

This portion still needs to be raked and bagged. This area is near the road and has smaller leaves. Those little leave are not fun to rake or bag.

I started working in the courtyard since the dogs spend a lot of time out there and I wanted to make sure I had enough time to clean it. Once again, this whole area was covered in leaves.

When we finished for the evening, there were eighteen bags of leaves and pine needles (sixteen from the front yard and two from the courtyard in the back).

I hope we can get the rest of the front yard raked before this cold front comes through tomorrow. The highs for next week are supposed to be in the low to mid 40s. I'm a strong girl, but I do have my limits. I don't work outside in temperatures below fifty.

Edited to add: We did get the yard finished before it got too cold. We did brave some rain sprinkles, but nothing terrible. When we finally finished, we had thirty-eight bags of yard stuff.

Mum is no longer the word

A couple of weeks ago, I purchased some lovely mums from Home Depot. I had a vision of grandeur; our courtyard was going to be gorgeous when the mums bloomed.

Let me remind you of what I started with:

This is what they look like today:

These aren't my visions of grandeur. I'm not sure what went wrong, but something obviously did. Maybe it was too hot? I watered them, but two never bloomed and one kind of did, but not really. I would like to point out my lovely planters. I bought them just for these blasted mums. I didn't bother photographing the third plant. It looks just like the one above that has no blooms on it.

I know the yard needs to be mowed. It's too wet today. Maybe tomorrow.