A Month Later

My last post pretty much corresponded with the beginning of my new job. Things have been far too busy for me to even imagine what I could write about but luckily, not so busy that I haven't been able to detach from my job over the weekends and spend time enjoying the garden and working on the house.

Not much has changed in the garden since we dug the trenches last month except for some rototilling. We bought ourselves a small rototiller to tear up our weeds and grass and it's worked quite well for the little we've used it.


One note, I've seen more than a few times people advising against rototilling oxalis... I think I disagree. We went over a couple square yards of wonderful clovers without going deep into the soil, no more than an inch (very easy to do with a small rototiller). So we ripped up the green vegetation in a very short matter of time and the bulbs are still undisturbed underneath. Seems to me that the result is the same as handpicking but with sooo much time saved. It's also so much more thorough. Now, we'll just wait for the clovers to reappear and go over them again to weaken the bulbs. Hopefully in a few years the bulbs will about give up.

Anyway, for some whimsy, I bought a bird feeder!


I don't know why but growing up we never had a bird feeder at any of the places I lived. It's made me so giddy watching the birds fly around. I caught a squirrel hanging down from a branch and spinning the feeder to knock down the food. Mischievous, but so fun to watch. As soon as I have some free money, I'm getting an Adirondack chair to read and watch from.

So, I have few wonderful photos of my back yard moving into spring. First, the most dramatic blossoms, our star magnolia.


At first the magnolia flowers were looking pretty bad because of the occasional frosty weather, but now the blooms are better and with the leaves half emerged, I think it looks better than it ever will.

Next, the tiny clusters of flowers on my new Manzanita (not sure what variety sadly). Not in the ground yet but blooming like it doesn't care.


I'm so happy with the Manzanita and the Ceanothus, just now bursting its buds, that I'm sure I'll buy at least one more of each.

Next, no flowers yet, but I'm loving the leaves on the irises I moved to the back last fall. They're finally growing large enough that the blades are growing wavy and really quite beautiful.


I've also started a majority of the seeds I ordered and collected last year. Before now, I'd never collected and planted seeds before; before last year, I had never started plants from seeds. But I bagged up a few seedheads from my plant pots last summer and a couple from plants I'd put in my parents backyard. I've also recently harvested over a hundred little black seeds from the penstemen gloxinoides I planted in the front this winter.

This time around, I decided to go the slow and steady way and have had my seed plants growing outside from the beginning, avoiding the problem of my curious inside cats. My seedlings may be slightly small, but they are very strong. They even survived that surprise hail last week! No casualties.


Columbines collected from a double pink and a double purple variety I bought for my parents (they actually reseeded at my parents house despite the poor soil). I have four or five pots of these.


Dianthus 'Ideal Violet' from Parkseed.com


Galliardia 'Mesa Yellow' and 'Arizona Sun'. Galliardia was what I meant to buy when I got Gazania last year, but oh well, I have dozens of them now.


Here are some of the poppies. The long thin blades are regular California poppies from a seed packet, but the thicker leaved ones are Red horned poppies from the first seeds I ever harvested (hehe my babies). Click on the picture, the hairy leaves are so weird.

Lastly, I haven't written about work on the house in some time because there hasn't been much that was picture worthy. Perhaps in another month, I'll be able to post pictures of our living room, painted and decorated for the first time. As of now, the paint has been scraped off the plaster and maybe a tenth of the wall space has gotten a skim coat of new plaster.

More later.

Finally Emerging

I've been horribly negligent about the bulbs that I so badly needed to buy over the last few months. Not on the buying side, I bought lots of bulbs but never got to planting them. Not until past all the recommended planting dates. On either January 8th or 9th, can't remember, I planted the Muscari I bought back in November. While I've already seen pictures of other people's gardens with emerging Muscari flower buds, mine are just getting started. But I'm very very glad to say that I didn't plant them too late! It's been just under two weeks but the tops of the leaves are starting to emerge.



I was trying to count up the emerging tips but kept getting lost and seeing more where I'd already counted. There are at least 30 already coming up.

And on to the bulbs in the front yard, I discovered three days ago that my tulips are also starting to pop up. Does anyone have tulips coming up already? I thought I waited too long to plant these too but it was still in early December. Much better than my other bulbs. These are on either side of the steps to our front porch.



You can probably tell that I didn't amend the soil as much (as well) with the tulips as I did with the Muscari. I think I'll work some more compost into the soil when the bulbs die back next year.

Like the bulbs, everything else in our garden just now is in the development stage. There seem to be just two plants blooming just now, the breath of heaven shrub in the front and the ground cover Gazania next to the street tree.



I'll just have to do my best to add more plants that will give winter interest before the next one comes around (shouldn't be difficult as I have so much to add). I've already taken one step in that direction by finally planting one of the barberry 'red glow' shrubs that I bought, again, ages ago. It looks small and pitiful with only a few leaves remaining but those leaves are gorgeous.


Then there's the Dietes or fortnight lily that I planted a few weeks ago which is finally starting recover some of its darker green coloring. It had been going slightly yellow in its pot but this year will be a better one for it. (This is my baby of two and a half years now, I'm determined it will be happy this year and bloom abundantly).


Last, on the topic of my developing plants, the newly planted Ceanothus 'Dark Star' that I mentioned before has little buds meaning I can be sure that it's happily developing in its new home.


Last of all, I just have to post a few pictures of the new exterior of the house. The better lighting in these pictures is just begging for me to post them.



And I told you, see? The back porch, though still with ugly siding attached to it, is straight and level.

Ours is the Most Beautiful House

...at least, on the street, if not farther out. To say the least, that Robin's Egg blue isn't on our house anymore. The painter's finished the day yesterday sooo close to being completely finished with the house and for the first time this week, we came home before sunset and were actually able to see their work. Two days ago, we gathered up all the paint samples that I'd left out on the porch and put the one we'd chosen on the porch rail for the painters to see. But silly me, of course, even though I've been viewing the color choice as an extremely serious decision, I was less than serious when I was quickly moving the samples about before work on Monday morning. I believe I accidentally left the second choice color for the house on the porch. heh. heh. Luckily, choosing between those last two colors was very difficult and I really loved both of them.

Soooo... It not like I'm narrating this in person and you haven't actually seen the final pictures yet but~~~ *drumroll* Ta~dah






Even our garage with its tiny little window looks beautiful.


Maybe you can see (but probably not) that there are a few spots that need some corrective painting . We're not complaining though since it free and goooorgeous. We'll want to paint the trim white around the two back doors, and that small spot on the middle pillar blue. Then, just two harder ones, that we might not do anyway, the top of the chimney wasn't painted for some reason, it's still quite pink but we might be getting the chimney rebuilt anyway, and the rafters on the side of the porch and house would be better white, not that they stand out strangely for being blue. Then, that back porch, ick. But really, in person, you can see that once the siding is taken off it will be fine and it is straight and level, as well, though for some reason it doesn't look it in the picture. Probably because of that siding.

The only thing lacking now is the landscaping and now that the painting is done I can finally plant around the foundations!! Not that I have any money hah.

So to finish...
Come on Google Street View!! I'll let you retake the pictures for our street now.