Backyardigans

Just like our front yard our back yard had exploded over the past couple of weeks! So after cleaning up our front yard we decided to tackle our back yard as well, for good measure.
While we do have some landscaping plans tucked away with a vision of how we want the backyard, well, actually our whole landscaping to look once we're done with it, it's not anywhere near our priority list. Most of the time I grab a plant or two and a bag of mulch perhaps when I'm out and about which makes for very very -very- slow progress but that's okay. We have no plans for moving any time soon so it's all good.

Our yard isn't big. In fact, it's more on the smallish side and there are time when I wish we had a little more outdoor room but once I'm done mowing, weeding and raking I'm convinced that our little yard is plenty big as it is.

There is room for a pool, room to romp around with the dog, room to shoot BB guns and do some archery, room to plant vegetables and to keep bees (and maybe down the line a chicken or two), room for a little patio with table and chairs, and room for a BBQ grill. Really, what more do you need?

There is nothing really pretty about an above ground pool BUT we love it all the same and for summer in Florida, it's the best thing to have in your back yard. Nothing beats a quick splash when it's hot and humid! But visually? Visually these things are just a big blue eye sore. I may have an idea on how to make it tie into the landscape a bit better but for now this is it.

I did, however, add some white marble gravel as well as ferns and Liriope plants to soften the whole deal a bit and make it look a little nicer. Still not great, but a little nicer.

Over the summer, those ferns had gotten out of bounds - they were everywhere! Instead of a clean planter bed with nicely alternating lush ferns and Liriope, lush and green against crisp white rocks, I had FERNS!

So, I ripped them up. Not all of them, mind you, but just the offshoots from the mother plants. That also allowed me to clean up all of the yellow and brown leaves that had gotten trapped in the fern tangle and tidy up the rocks.

Can you believe I removed enough 'fern spawn' to fill -three- hanging baskets? Yeah, I couldn't either.

That's the other side of our yard, opposite our splash zone. As you can see I have begun to add to the perimeter planting slowly moving into the area curving toward the pool and around the Crape Myrtle (not visible) to creating both a pathway from the side into the back yard and an almost circular area in the far left corner as an 'outdoor room'.

It looks very GREEN, but, really, there are plants blooming - there are bright fuchsia Pentas, red Vincas, yellow Florida daisies, pink and yellow Lantanas, two types of Jasmine, orange Bulbines, and more!

Now that front and back are back to looking halfway decent again, it's time to go back to praying it'll stop raining so we can paint the house .... sheesh

Saving Grace

While the husband and I are contemplating picket fence designs and porch railings for the front of the house, we know we are pretty much stuck with the chain link fence in the back that came with the house when we bought it.

It is not pretty.

BUT ...

It's a serviceable fence, it's sturdy and goes all around our property  keeping puppies in and other people's puppies out and well, it's a fence. It also makes it hard for bad people to do bad things hidden from sight and opens up the view to the back alley so there's no sneaking around - at least not along our property line. Also, a new fence in the back is just not in the budget right now with all the other things we want to accomplish (and have to pay for).

So, it stays.

However, there are ways to make it a bit less 'blah'.

Remember how I subtitled one picture of Miss Mattie's make-over with a hint of things to come? Well, one of the little projects we tackled during the make-over was simply BRILLIANT. BRILLIANT, I say.
We spray-painted her chain link fence!
We. SPRAY-PAINTED it.
Black.
It made all the difference!

 [Before]

So, on Saturday, at the crack of dawn as you can see in the picture I snuck (sneaked?) heavily armed with several cans of Rust-o-leum enamel spray paint in black and went to work.

 

 [In progress!]

Fair warning: it takes a LOT of spray paint, especially when you are also trying to paint the wire mesh, and the cans created a hideous overspray. My feet and arms are still bespeckled with black.

Other than that, the effect is simply beautiful.

 

[After]

All glossy black, the ugly chainlink fence transforms into something more resembling wrought-iron fencing and looks a lot less "cheapo."

 [After: So glossy!]

It took a whole large can (the one with "25% more content") to spray-paint the small gate so for the remainder of the fence, I decided to skip the wire mesh and just spray paint the main posts instead for now.
Then I put the lattice panel back into place and thought that adding lattice panels instead of painting the mesh might be another idea to pursue and tabled the decision for later. It's a work in progress, after all. Right? For now, I'm pretty happy with my chain link fence make-over.

And so is the husband who is usually not all that excited about his wife spray-painting stuff :o)

Pool Surround

Sure enough - I have prepped and primed molding waiting for two coats of white paint in the dressing room but of course, anything, -any-thing- sounds more fun and is a lot more interesting to do than, you know, painting trim.

Since it seems that I have caught the gardening bug, most of my latest endeavors have been aimed at the yard. There were certain areas that had me itching to do something about them. Case in point: the area around our pool. Last year, I whipped up our little  patio area from pavers found all over the yard, some edging and a couple of bags of pea gravel, and it has held up beautifully and provided us with a nice spot to sit outside in our back yard.

This year, during the big clean-up of the pool when we emptied it out completely and pushed it back about two feet, we ended up with a patio that felt more spacious and less closed in by the pool, but it also left us with a pretty bare spot of dirt between the pool and the patio.

See? That's really nothing worth looking at. An above ground pool is really and truly an eye sore but the benefits definitely outweigh that particular drawback.

One day (this weekend), however, I'd had enough of the crummy looks and decided to just do something about it. After a quick trip to the orange box, I returned with a small car load of marble chips and an armful of plants. I choose to go with Liriope and Ferns for some hardy planst that can deal with the poor soil, partial shade and the abuse they'd experience in those particular spots.

[Six bags later ...]

I alternated my plants, added a stepping stone to get to the pump for easy filter changes and clean feet and then covered everything with the pretty, sparkly, white marble chunks.

So. much. better.

This is much nicer to look at already, and I might even have an idea to ...ahem, prettify the big blue menace at some point.

After I was done and I began to coral the odds and ends we keep on the patio (bugspray, sunscreen, skimmer, etc.), I grabbed an old wire windowbox, zippy-tied it to the fence right between grill and pool and used that instead. It had never worked as an actual planter, not holding enough moisture to keep plants alive baking in the Florida sun, but it had found a new calling.

It's perfect!

No water can pool in there and provide breeding space for mosquitos (they are bad enough as it is already - no need to help them populate the world even more!), yet it holds our patio essentials nicely and works great as a holder for the skimmer with its long handle.

Sooo .... what to tackle next?

Make way, make way!

Lately - despite the summer heat, high humidity and pesky mosquitos - I've been feeling rather outdoorsy and needed to nurse my inner gardener. I don't have a green thumb per se, but I do enjoy digging in the dirt, planting and pruning and the challenge of experimenting with plants to find the one, the few who are able to thrive in what we consider "soil' here in Florida.

While I definitely appreciate a lush lawn, it's the one thing that comes at too high a price for us here in the Sunshine State. In order to keep your lawn lush and green and alive, you have to battle a fight to the death, constantely, and on all fronts. From bugs to drought to weeds, a nicely maintained lawn is always under attack. Bare dirt, however, just sucks. Pondering and exploring alternatives of groundcovers such as lowgrowing thymes and perennial peanut didn't really yield the results we were looking for either. Add to that the added difficulty of having to have a walkway cutting right across the front yard so we can get to the backyard gate and our trash cans, a significant drip line along the same line where nothing growns, not even Florida's hardy weeds, and a part-shade, shade setting and you're in for a real brain twister.

After tackling the sunny part of our front yard (read about it here) and really, really loving the black mulch, I decided to follow the same idea over on the other side.

I bought some more no-dig edging (LOOOOVE the stuff) to create the pathway, wide enough to walk and roll the trash can in and out comfortably (Yes, I did take them for a test drive to make sure it'd work). I've used that edging before and it works beautifully. No digging trenches - just lay down and stake into place. Very gratifying, I'm tellin' you.

I covered the planting area with the lovely lovely black mulch, and added two more plants I hope will do well in their new spot: pink calladiums.

There's definitely a pink 'thang' happening in my front yard right now, but even the husband likes it.

Here's another favorite of mine, happily thriving in a sunny spot of the front yard: a grass.

I love how lace-y and feather-y it looks. And of course it's pinkish-purple-ish!

We're getting closer to some actual curb appeal here at the Ugly Duckling. Next, we'll buy some gravel for our walkway for a more finished look and we're planning our fence.

Leaves blow

While it's still sweltering hot during the day, there's no denying that fall has arrived in North East Florida.

Just ask the Crape Myrtle on front of our house. It's fixing to get all nekkid, dropping leaves left, right and center. Grrrr! Adding insult to injury, our next door neighbor's yard service cut the grass next door and used a leaf blower to clean up the side walk in front of her house.

BY. BLOWING. THE. WHOLE. CRAP. ON. MY. PART. OF. THE. SIDEWALK.

I kid you not.
A$$hat. (Pardon my French)
Seriously.

Hell-bent on revenge against both, lawn service man and leaves, I decided that I needed a leafblower. Only armed like that, I'd be able to survive fall.

So I started reading up on leaf blowers. Not like I had many pre-requisites. Electric is fine by me (I drive a gas hog, don't need to add a gas guzzling gardenening tool to my not so green side of life, right?), light weight would be great given that I'm short and not interested in bodybuilder style arms and inexpensive.

[Ta-da: My weapon of mass-leaf-destruction!]

After reading plenty of reviews, it appeared that the cheap-o leaf blower by Troy-Bilt from Lowe's fit my bill just right. Less than $50, enough power to blow stuff around, light weight and electric, it allowed me to check off all of my checkboxes. It also got raving reviews from a lot of guys who are usually the power-tool wielding family members. The hubby and I don't have that much experience with those outdoor tools yet, so we listened to what others had to say.

After much mocking from the husband ("A leaf blower?? Just for the leaves from that tree? Why not sweep? What's wrong with the broom?"), some subtle hinting from yours truly (Quiet blowing with rather innocent eyes and a sweeping motion with an imaginary leaf blower) and we walked home with said blower from the store yesterday. It's been raining, so the leaves are now sticky but the sun is back out and I'll update later with my first experiences!

Bare-naked Back Yard Truth

While we've been doing some amount of work on the outside of our Ugly Duckling like shift our fence line (here), put up a make-shift patio (here) and getting started on planting some flowers (here), our outdoors is still pretty scruffy looking. Granted, until we replace the weeds with either sod (highly unlikely) , a wildflower lawn (pretty but unlikely) or perennial peanut (most likely), it'll continue to look fairly scruffy unless it's been weedwhacked just the day before. Tamed weeds look a bit more ...ahem, sophisticated than crazy growing ones.

And then there are the leaves . Pointy prickly holly leaves, green holly berries and a scattering of leaves and wilted blooms from the Crape Myrtles. They provide a constant blessing. Add to that a helping of tools and supplies and the need for an exterior paint job for our house and it's not so much "shabby chic" as "in need of TLC".

[Before: Please HGTV my mess!]

Fortunately, the blue box has been having a great sale for anything outdoors going on. A lot of items in the gardening department are discounted at the end of the season, so it's definitel;y worth dropping in and scouting out what your store has to offer. I found plenty of lovely things discounted by as much as 80% without any mentioning in sales flyers anywhere!

[Backyard stoop with curtains]

Curtains make everything look more civilized so I broke out the curtains we had hanging on our big porch over at Silver Street and after a quick run through the washer hung them in our little covered stoop.

One of my lucky finds at the blue box was a table for our backyard. We'd gone tableless until now and had dragged out a table from inside if we felt like having a meal in the back yard, but a dedicated back yard table would be so much nicer. Putting it together was easy-peasy and accomplished quickly, especially with Seamus supervising the project.

[Perfect match!]

Another lucky find was this box of string lights I added to the back stoop for a little sparkle!

Tossing this all together and giving the back yard patio a quick cleaning (you know, like moving all tools and saw horses into the shed and coralling all balls and other toys into a rubbermaid container) actually played a major part in transforming our back yard patio and stoop. Things are starting to come together. Granted, they are temporary fixes - we are planning to build a deck in its stead - but for now they'll serve us well and will be less of an eye sore to our neighbors to boot!

[After: Not too shabby]

Cost breakdown:

• pavers: $0 (repurposed from other area of the house)



• no-dig edging: $16



• 3 bags of pea gravel: $10



• new table: $25



• lights: $7



• hanging planter: $0



• potatoe vine: $0 (it's a cutting from a plant I had already)

The bext thing about this little spruce up adventure? We are now actually using the back yard for more than just hopping into the pool and working on projects! There's a place to put your drink and a neat little area to sit and read a book. Is it HGTV worthy? Naww, far from it, but it's a lot better than before and that's what counts.

Baby steps, folks, baby steps.

Changing season

Since Friday's post you know that I needed a pick-me up. What better reason to swing by the blue box to browse the gardening section for some little lovelies for my yard?

Lowe's did not disappoint. In fact, I ended up the kid in the candy store marveling at all the clearance and sales tags in the gardening section. Woot! Even the distressed plant shelf was nicely stocked!

Distressed plant shelf? Well, I don't know about your big home improvement stores but ours here occasionally seem to hire people with not so green thumbs. Thus they end up with a bunch of plants that look mighty disheveled and/or shriveled, and they sell these poor abused lifeforms for very little money. Like a 10th of the original price low. Not always do I end up taking one of these patients back home with me; my own thumbs aren't overly green and certain kinds of plants become death row candidates in my care.

Others, fortunately, do thrive and since the canna lilies I bought for $10 a pop a few weeks ago seem to love their spot and don't object to my care, I picked up 2 of their distressed cousins. Canna lilies grow from bulbs, so unless the bulbs are rotten to the core, they will come back next year! I also decided to take an electric blue salvia home with me and a few other things to pretty up the outside of the Ugly Duckling.

My little plant arrangement next to our entry door had gotten a bit out of control. I'd unknowingly bought a bleeding heart -vine- and it's a really enthusiastic grower! I had to cut it back on a weekly basis and so it always looked disheveled and out of shape (and bounds). It's not like our house needs any help looking disheveled - far from it - so it had to go.

[Before: Potted plant out of control!]

At the blue box, I picked up 3 little yellow Mums (nothing says "Fall is here" like blooming mums!) and splurged on a cute, 2-tiered topiary. Then I got down and dirty and started digging up the existing plants. Crazy growing bleeding heart was earmarked to go into the backyard, along with the potatoe vine, and unknown trailing plant no. 3 got to hang around with its new buddy, the topiary.

[In Progress: Diggin' in]

Out with the old and in with the new - switching up the planter didn't take that long and only half an hour later, our front porch and entry looked much much better!

[After: So much better! All nice and tidy]

Just wish me luck I'll be able to keep this pretty poofy topiary alive!

One door closes, one door opens

One of the things that can drive you slightly insane when you buy an old home in need of repairs, is the necessity to "project-hop" as we've decided to call it. You can't just take the time to paint all of the trim for 6 weeks or just use the next 2 weeks to bring all of the windows to ship-shape. Sure enough, the moment you're settled in with all your project tools and supplies in place, something needs to be done first/breaks and has to be fixed - not to mention the kind of brain-numbing boredom and paralysis that sets in if you do the same thing over and over without the fresh wind from a new and exciting project.

So after a great evening with friends, BBQ, campfire and s'more we woke to the sounds of torrential rains the next morning. No big deal - still plenty to do inside to keep us busy and from catching cabin fever. I don't remember what we'd settled on doing that day, but those plans went out the window when husband had to ram the shed door to get to a piece of needed supply. The rain and the high humidity had caused the awful shed door to swell and rendered it unusable. Since we couldn't just leave it open, our plans changed to "install new shed door".

[Before: Old nasty door. God only knows why somebody had cut
a rectangle into it only to cover it with a piece of ply again]

Dear husband made a dash to the home improvement store to pick up a new exterior door and returned soon after with a brandnew JELD-WEN pre-hung panel door and some galvanized screws and nails. Everything else we fortunately had already on hand.

[In-Progress: Taking apart the existing frame]

Since this was our first door install, we watched a couple of DIY videos, ogled the existing door frame construction, deliberated and brainstormed about the approach and then started taking the old frame apart since the new door came pre-hung.

[In-Progress: Rebuilding the opening to fit]

After taking it apart, putting it back together didn't seem so daunting anymore. It's funny how you seem to 'grow' with each project in both your DIY abilities and confidence. Half a year ago, I'm pretty sure we'd have squeaked like little school girls at the thought of replacing a door with frame.

[After: Almost finished - the door is hung, level and as plumb as you
can get in a 97 old wooden house]

Once the hardware was installed, we could take a breath. Except for a light sprinkle, the weather had been good to us and the house had cooperated beautifully once again. The new door opens and closes and locks like a charm and looks so much better than that old piece of junk that used to be in its place. Of course, we didn't get one inch of trim painted that day but such is life: project-hopping at its best.

New (plant) life

I so so sooooooooo want to garden yet there are many more and more pressing projects that need and should be completed first. However, with the idea of keeping the DIY spirit alive and kicking I do dig up some dirt every once in a while simply to make me happy. Well, and to keep the front yard from looking like ...you know ... somebody's donkey (or its behind).

[Before: Floridian desert life with Vinkas and Crape Myrtles]

August is just so not a month to plant anything, really. It's god-awfully hot, the sun burns down from a hazy sky and the occasional torrential rains wash out what little nutrients are left and mercilessly drown the more tender candidates. You also end up with a case of "fried brains" rather quickly.

I have my heart set on planting perennial peanut for an easy, low maintenance ground cover with cottage charm instead of a lawn (*yawn) but that will have to wait until the fall so the plants will have a chance to get established and survive this climate. Until then, dirt aka Florida sand and some mulch will have to suffice.

[More loot from the nursery]

After a scrumptious dinner the Little Man and I took a stroll through the nursery adjacent to the restaurant and ended up with a cart loaded with plants for a new planter bed in front of the house. We also picked up some no-dig edging for an easy way of laying out the bed.

[After: Still more of a desert but we're getting there]

I should have checked the weather forecast before starting to dig up the front yard but I just couldn't wait to get my hands dirty. In the end - 3 hours later - I was feeling somewhat nauseous and lightheaded and decided to camp out inside for a few hours. That's when I learned that the thermometer had hit the 98F mark with a heat index of 107F. Ugh, too hot!

The result was worth a little heat discomfort though. Some grasses, variegated liriope and Arabian jasmine later my little bed started to look quite nice. You know, when you ignored the mulched desert in front of it.

[After: All done except for some peanuts]

Now I need is a truckload of perennial peanut to bring the desert out front back to live.

Impromptu Patio for $25

Speaking of impromptu projects: in a fit of madness, I grabbed a bunch of pavers from the side of the house and brought them to the back to the location of the future deck. Might as well practice and dabble with the size while the deck is still in the planning stage, right?

[Impromptu patio in progress]

Not much to look at right away, but what can you really expect from a 1hr, no money spent project? At least, it gives us a better idea of the size of the future deck.

Once that was out of my system, I hopped over to the store and grabbed a coil of no-dig edging for $15 and 3 bags of pea gravel for $3.50 each. Under the watchful eyes of Seamus, I spent another hour finishing our impromptu patio by framing it with edging and filling the gaps between the octagonal pavers with pea gravel for a more finished look before going to bed.

Florida summer nights are just as god-awfully hot as the days, the air like a thick viscous liquid, but at least there's no sun burning from the sky and frying your brains. It was far more pleasant than digging up the front yard on Sunday morning. More on that later! Of course I had to wait until the next morning for a couple of pictures so here you go:

[Just three ingredients: old pavers that came with the Duckling,

pea gravel and no-dig edging]

[Rainy early morning in Florida. Check out the background:
one of my canna lilies is fixing to bloom again!]

Glamorous? No, but it looks much more like a planned project than something I threw together on a whim and the price can't be beat. This will tide us over nicely until we have the funds, time and DIY drive to build a deck in its stead next year or the year after.

Make-shift Outdoors

The worst thing to happen to your carefully crafted DIY project planning are those crazy "spur of the moment" projects you think you can throw into the mix at the drop of a hat because "it'll only take us a few minutes".

Rrrright!
Nothing. Absolutely nothing takes just a few minutes. Ever.
Really.

Anyways, we were just about done tiling (and with the world) when husband decided he didn't want to waste a handful of thinset left at the very bottom of the bucket. We might as well use that for the fence.

The ...wha?

The fence. This was this week's brilliant spur of the moment idea: moving our fence to the actual property line. You know, how long could it possibly take to move a fence post and connect a pipe and some chain link fencing, right? Mere minutes. Maybe an hour.
Rrrrright!

A previous owner had installed our fence about 4 feet away from the actual property line and angled one corner to create a funnel effect between our property and the neighboring one. Since it also connected to the back alley that runs the length of our block (a relic from those times when trash wasn't picked up at the curb but away from sight along the back alleys that crisscross the neighborhood) it often served as a short-cut for whoever walked down the alley. Not cool and often somewhat awkward, having friendly strangers, but strangers all the same, walk basically through your yard. Fortunately our sweet neighbor felt the same and with her blessings we moved the fence, closing off the alley access.

[After: Our yard grew about 6 feet in width and gained an entire corner.
Oh yeah, we still have to remove part of the old fence]

Two hours and a trip to the hardware store later we had a fence that was actually following our property lines in the back. No more cutting through between the houses! And, boy, did our yard grow! Changing the fence line added a huge chunk to our yard that now feels about twice its size (even though it's still on the small side -plenty of weeds to whack for me).

So far, so good. We haven't heard any complaints but the neighborhood cats learned of the changed fence line the hard way: a late night kerfuffle ended with the sounds of a cat running into the fence and bouncing off of it. Surprise!

So, what kind of impromptu half-finished project have you thrown into your carefully planned DIY weekend lately?

Little piece of jungle

Yes, there's a tight deadline for the completion of our Masterbathroom, the dressing room and the guest bedroom.
As in, we have 2.5 weeks left.
Super tight.
I just can't help it - I need to dig in the dirt every so often!!!

So last weekend, I grabbed my Little Man and after a mad and quick shopping spree at the blue box and coming home with a Jeep-load of plants we tackled the first spot in the back yard. I've mused about our grand plans for our ittibitty backyard haven before (read about it here) and it was about time to take the first steps in turning our patch o'weeds into our tropical retreat.

[Before: At least it's green]

With the exception of the beautiful shade provided by a humongous holly tree and a hint of color from a young and skinny crape myrtle, our backyard is more or less just weeds. Big yawn. The fence is still waiting for the trumpet vine I planted weeks ago to grow tall enough to cover it and we still need to bump out that angled side to follow our actual property line. Some day, some day ... gotta save a few projects for later, right?

[Lovely loot!]

Little Man and I picked up a few tropical staples and for less than $100 we came home with 2 beautiful canna lilies, 3 spider lilies, 2 palm trees, a tray of pentas, a red mandevilla vine, the coolest purple plants EVER, and two different kinds of potatoe vine for easy coverage.

[Placing plants]

We dug up weeds, tilled the soil, worked in some manure and then finally started experimenting with the placement of our plants.

[It's good to have a little helper who doesn't mind getting dirty]

We mulched with pine straw, watered and stood back to admire our work.

[After: Greener, more colorful and a lot more to look at]

There you have it, a first glimpse of things to come in the backyard. We're loving it and dishwashing has improved mightily thanks to a much improved vista from the kitchen window. We still got a long way to grow ... heh ... but at least we're on our way.

Spillin' over

When Sustainable Springfield turned an empty lot in our neighborhood into a community garden, we couldn't wait to sign up for our own plot! Unfortunately, we had to wait a whole year before our dream came true but since January 2011 we've been happily gardening and planting veggies and fruit in our own little plot piece of Springfield.

[Little Man prouldy presenting our sugar snap peas in early April]

[Our raised bed at the community garden in early spring]


So far we've planted sugar snap peas, strawberries, different kinds of lettuce, arugula, bush beans, cucumbers, summer squash, zucchini, swiss chard, scallions, tomatoes, basil, parsley, peppers and cantaloupe. Some of these we have been enjoying on a more or regular basis. our sugar snap peas were especially prolific but often our harvest didn't make it home for cooking. We simply snacked on them raw, picked off the vine right then and there!

Over the last two weeks our plants have really taken off and our plot started to resemble a jungle rather than a kitchen garden. Since our butterfly garden kit still hadn't shipped yet, I decided to thin out the plot and re-plant some of our veggies at the Duckling house. If it worked - great! If not, well at least we'd be preparing the planting area for its future design. Right?

Sunday, Little Man and I started weeding. What kind of looks like a ratty lawn is really just a collection of assorted short weeds ... oh, and fire ants which we've been battling with a poisonous bait. They are evil and their bites can even leave scars (True story! I have the scar to prove it!). Luckily (for us), they seem to like the bait just fine as shown by their eagerness to drag the little oatmeal colored crumbs into the mound and the silence that follows after just a day. No more fire ants, thank you very much!

[Before: The weedy mess we're dealing with]

After weeding for several hours and catching this year's first sunburn, fertilizing, planting and mulching we ended up with this:

[Always a bag short of a fully mulched bed ... ]

At least it's clean. Now it's wait and see if the veggies we replanted will catch on and thrive in their new place. Wish us luck!

Green Thumb Dreams

Since Little Man and I will be camping out in the boonies with our cub scout pack tonight before tomorrow's big final push to get the moving done, I thought that I'd leave you with a little post about the outdoors at the Ugly Duckling to tide you over the weekend.

We'll be crashing and sleeping at our darling little old house tomorrow for the first time, testing our brand new kitchen (Note to self: Must get kiddie pool to contain husband's coffee making experiments) and sifting through and shifting boxes all weekend, that I doubt I'll find the time to properly update every day. Plus, there's the hint of a cold creeping up on me and I'm feeling slightly drained. Joy! Meh ...

From the start we had a fairly good idea of what we wanted for our back yard: a slightly tropical retreat with lots of color and cozy touches. And room for a splash pool for the Little Man and friends. Poking around on the 'net I discovered several garden planners and although none really blew me away, I did dabble with the one I found on BHG.com a little longer than with the others. Also, it's pretty colorful which always pleases a visually inclined person like myself :o)

Here's a screen shot:

[source: bhg.com]

If anybody figured out a way to adjust the working window size or 'move' around your lot without moving structures, let me know. It was giving me a hard time, my patience was wearing out slowly so I threw my hands in the air, let measurements be measurements and simply went for the look without it being 100% to scale. I mean it's just a concept sketch anyhow, right?

So here we go:

We really want to have a small deck off of the backdoor: just big enough to fit our patio set and gas grill so we're looking at a deck that's about 12ft deep and wide with a cut out to accommodate one of our two a/c compressors . Behind that is the best corner for Little Man's splash pool (It's funny: I had to use their bird bath icon to simulate the pool since their other pool icon is kidney-bean shaped).

Across from the pool via a stepping stone path from the deck is a little bench tucked between flowers and covered by a little arbor for added coziness. I'd really love an orange tree and some other tropical plants tossed together with butterfly and hummingbird plants to add to that colorful Florida feel. I mean, c'mon, we -are- in Florida - we might as well flaunt it!

We're not aiming for a grassy-green lawn. Our climate doesn't really allow for a soft grassy green expanse in your yard unless you want to go broke which we can't afford. Plus, grass capable of surviving Florida weather tends to be rather harsh and spikey. Right now I'm brushing up on alternative ground covers and so far the groundcovering thymes look very promising!

Thanks to code we had to stuff both of our ac compressors into our back yard. They are located on either side of the kitchen window leaving a 4ft opening between them - perfect for a miniature kitchen garden in a raised bed! I have my eyes on a small curly-cue iron trellis for the back of it so pole beans and/or sugar snap peas have a place to climb.

I did order a butterfly garden kit and a few other plants from Michigan Bulb Co. Mind you, this company gets a bag of badly mixed reviews which I discovered after I ordered so right now I'm basically assuming the worst so that I might end up pleasantly surprised. According to the reviews you either hit jackpot or rock-bottom so wish me luck! Thanks to a rather generous coupon this won't be a too expensive lesson to learn ...

Little Outdoor Lovin'

Our Ugly Duckling is slowly but surely turning into a Darling Duckling. Most of those changes are happening on the inside: fresh paint, refinished floors, clean bathrooms and a new kitchen, but every once in a while I ignore the list, turn the priority list upside down and spread a little love on the outside of our little old house.


Here's what we did over the past couple of weeks; painted the bench, painted the door and window frames, painted the entrance door, moved Griswold our mailbox over to the entrance door, installed new outdoor lighting and created a planter with a blooming, yet shade-loving vine and some sweet potatoes in a red planter we already owned (although I might paint it to match the red door).

The 'crackle finish' of the porch floor are the first signs of us gearing up to paint it; we simply spackled the smaller cracks and screw holes from where the former handrail was fastened with a concrete spackle.

Before

After

It's all slowly coming together