Posted by Matthew
Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:37:00 GMT
My lovely wife gave me a solar powered fountain for my birthday a few weeks back:
Our new solar-powered fountain (filled with reclaimed rainwater) because we are hippies.
It is excellent and completes my end of the duo pact that my pal Dan and I agreed to. We were inspired by our neighbor to each have both a Japanese maple tree and a fountain. Dan had a fountain that he put together himself (very impressive) and I have a rather meek looking Charlie Brown Japanese maple (it will make a come back in the Spring). Now I have an excellent fountain. I’ll probably upgrade the rocks to black river rocks (Dan ordered a box for this fountain) but, otherwise it is excellent. The solar pump charges for up to 8 hours of sun-free operation.
This past weekend I added a bench. Now all that is left is to deal with the mosquitos or hope the season actually changes to Fall and we can sit outside without being devoured alive.
Posted in Remodeling: Landscape | no comments
Posted by Matthew
Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:30:00 GMT
We got around to fixing up the front yard a bit. Here’s the new plant bed:
Featuring: the somethingorother switch grass. And more of the lovely mulch.
This involved a trip to Behnke’s, which is always a treat, and pulling out the shrub that sat between our house and our pals at 733, which was less of a treat and more like recess at the gulag. A week later I still have large cuts on my forearms from dragging that thing out of the ground. It has now been replaced by some switch grass (on the left). We also put in some Japanese grass. I’m going for a grass motif down the left hand side of the property. We may end up putting mulch through out the front yard as the grass isn’t doing so well. At least we managed to get something into the hard-as-concrete clay soil.
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Posted by Matthew
Sat, 23 Jun 2007 01:14:00 GMT
Here is a list (compiled by K.) of what we planted in the raised beds in our backyard:
Tomato "Supersweet 100"
Tomato "Cherokee Purple"
Pepper "Tequila Sunrise"
Pepper "Pimento de Padron"
Persicaria odorata (Vietnamese Coriander)
Origanum vulgare "Hot and Spicy"
Artemisia dranunculus (French Tarragon)
Thymus pulegoides (Archer's Gold Thyme)
Thymus vulgaris (Common Thyme)
Nepeta cataria (Catnip)
Allium schoenoprasum (Chives)
Lavandula augustifolia "Hidcote" (Hidcote lavender)
Ocimum basilicum minimum (Spicy Globe Basil)
Dianthus x allwoodii "Old Spice"
Rosemarinus officinalis "Romero"
Rosemarinus officinalis "Arp"
Sedum reflexum (Stonecrop)
Sisyrinchium bermudianum "Devon Skies" (Blue-eyed Grass)
Erica carnea "Springwood White" (White Heather)
Lonicera sempervirens (Trumpet Honeysuckle)
Monarda didyma "Jacob Cline" (Bee Balm)
Salvia nemorosa "Viola Klose" (Meadow Sage)
Fetusca cinerea "Elijah Blue" (Blue Fescue)
Buddleia davidii "Purple Emperor" (Butterfly Bush)
Pictures of the growth are coming soon. I can tell you that the tomato plants are growing like mad and we are likely to have tomatoes before summer is out. The yard itself is still a mess but, the raised bed plants are going like gang busters.
Posted in Remodeling: Landscape | Tags beds, dc, garden, landscape, raised | no comments
Posted by Matthew
Thu, 14 Sep 2006 20:38:00 GMT
Our neighbors decided it was time to upgrade their fence so we decided to hop on board that train. Now we have a fence! I spent some time this past weekend moving the concrete blocks I dug up over into the corner by the back gate. This is where the trash can and recycling go. The blocks are almost level! There is going to be a little corral back there with another gate on the south side. I dug the hole a bit deep so now there is soil along the north wall which is the start of a flower bed.
The fence really makes the backyard a more useful space. We want to put down some stone so we can put out our meager lawn furniture. We also plan on disguising the heat pump with some shrubs. The current thinking is for a Japanese maple in the front yard as the backyard won’t really accommodate even a small tree.
My folks bought us a mower:
The mower comes from the fine people at Clean air gardening. It works fairly well but, our yard is very uneven and full of concrete bits from the crumbling path that needs to be dug up. Perhaps that is this weekend’s task. But, the folks are visiting next week so I’ll probably be indoors tracking down cat hair-dust bunnies that blow around our hardwood floors like tumbleweeds.
Posted in Remodeling: Landscape | 1 comment | no trackbacks
Posted by K
Fri, 02 Jun 2006 05:38:00 GMT
The hipster and fancier version of the tire planters we have in our neighborhood is <a href=http://shop.theurbangarden.co.uk/product_info.asp?prdID=1589&n=recycled+tyre+planter&usrID=73EBBBE7-8741-4479-894C-76F79BEE5D83
>these and I don’t know how much shipping is but I think I need two or three of them for the porch.
Also: I think I fly out with the cat in four weeks, we have a million things to do, still, and our tile still appears to be missing.
I am right now obsessing over sinks (I went from thinking single bowl to double bowl and back to single bowl again) and countertops, even though there isn’t much we can do about any of that right now. I really wish we had some damn tile for the bathroom. I think that at this point maybe we SHOULD cancel the order and take our chances with a tile place that has half an idea as to what is going on. Matt doesn’t think Ramon (at Evil Nash Tile) even knows he sells tile.
Posted in Remodeling: Landscape | no comments | no trackbacks
