Update June

Over the past week, I've dug out a little bit more grass in the front but it's not ready for another areca yet. In the meantime, the grass on the side yard has been trimmed, gingers cleaned up again, and a little bit of weeding has been going on. So basically, I've just been doing a bit of maintenance.

We've also been working on cleaning up in granny's yard and it's looking quite nice now. I'm thinking of trimming her stephanotis and fixing her wall. Except I'm not sure I'd be able to do it.

Ooooo! Look at this!

The patio I CAN make... Simple and basic round brick patio
I made one similar, but it looks a mess now and I want to replace it.

The Sunset garden videos have some good info on making tomato cages, compost, and all kinds of good gardening stuff. Click here to see it.

Progress Report

This weekend, I planted 2 of my arecas and a couple of calla bulbs into the ground. I don't know if they'll grow in that spot between the arecas, but I have a couple in the backyard between my ti-leaf plants that are doing really well. Now, I need to take out more grass, plant the last areca and place a border to keep the grass out. I'll also have to get more of that free mulch from our local community college so I can mulch around my arecas so they don't die out. I hope there's enough space for them there, I planted them about 3 feet away from the wall and 4 feet apart.

Here's a pic of my progress.


This week, I'm going to go back to spending about 15 minutes on weekdays to maintain my yard. The weeds are getting big and the grass needs trimming. My whole yard needs some maintenance since I've let it go for a month. Here I thought I'd spend a couple hours rather than a few minutes a day.

Removing sod

is such a pain.

I spent a couple hours this weekend, rather than 20 minutes a day, to remove some of the sod along the wall. I'm also shaping that area so I can plant my areca palms. But I can see it'll be several weekends before I'll be ready to put in the edging strip. I'm considering just laying bricks and making a simple border for the time being. Then I'd be able to do a little bit at a time and still plant an areca palm every week or so. I WAS going to use that plastic landscape edging stuff, but if I can find something nicer, like rocks, I'd use those.

not much got done...

Well, a sick child meant not much outdoor time for me this week. DS was sick and home from school all week, which meant not much time for me to get anything done outside... or inside. I barely got the errands done. He's finally better though, so I hope to get out in the yard next week. Probably spend a couple hours one morning unless more work comes in.

I sent DD outside today to weed and trim our little flower garden in the front yard, so at least a little bit of neatening up got done. I will fertilize next week... I didn't put in fertilizer when we planted... shucks... we were too excited about getting them planted.


I also found this inspiration for a neat little patio feature... I did something similar, but I wanted to redo the backyard pavers. This is really nice and will probably be incorporated into the design. Not sure how I'll do it... hmmm..

Inspiration!

I found this wonderful idea for a dry spot in my garden... a tropical reef made with echeverias... You can find them at this website:

Hybrid Echeverias

Fishtails GONE!

But the spot looks so barren and ugly now. Of course, I have lots of work to finish it up yet, so I don't feel bad. I spent another couple hours yesterday to clean it out since I did hardly any gardening this past week.

It will improve... then there will be nicer pics. Over the next week, I will plan and start transforming the front yard. It's a big job so I might only tackle it once a week for a few hours on my "day off."

In the meantime, Here's some inspiration I found...

Slide show for the sidewalk planter aka Hell garden.