Ready

Well, not many interesting things have happened here in the last few weeks. I have bought more things for The Grandbaby for when he arrives in July, we haven’t gone on many hikes for various reasons, and I haven’t been doing much around the house. We are, however, definitely wanting to get ready for summer!

So on Sunday we went to Al’s Fruit and Shrub Garden Center in Woodburn and bought two magnolia trees for the yard. I was thinking we would put both of them in the front yard but now The Hubs has suggested putting one in the side yard, so now I’m not sure what we’ll do, but he definitely wants to plant one today. They are the “Vulcan” variety, with dark pink blossoms. I think they will add a lot of beauty to our yard!

Our two trees.

Also, I have received many yard decorations from my friend Linda, who with her husband is selling their house and downsizing into their R.V. I had planned to have The Hubs help me with the decorations last week when the weather was nice but he was busy, so now that will have to wait because it’s going to rain again for awhile. As soon as the sun comes back we will get out there and put up all the decorations and bird feeders. I may paint some of the stars and other decorations. Right now they are a sort of chartreuse color.

Many decorations including the new table and chairs – there are more stars too and two large gazing balls, and a bench!

Not sure where we’ll put this chiminea since we already have a fire pit, but we’ll find a place!

You can see that the dandelions have taken my sign seriously!

Here are some updates on my little patio garden. Most of the succulents are doing quite well and making all sorts of little baby succulents:

But I’m really not sure what this one is doing. Is it still alive? I think so, but it’s hard to tell.

The rosebush seems to be going great guns and enjoying the very wet feet it got throughout the winter.

This little plant has bounced right back:

I thought this pink lavender plant with the bee waterer had died, but it is coming back. I will clean the bee waterer and add some fresh water.

This lavender plant seems to have died, but I think it seeded some new little plants in the pot.

The rosemary and silver lavender plants seem to be doing well, although I do think this lavender plant needs to be in the ground or at least a bigger pot. I’d like to set up a little bed with the rosemary and lavender plants at some point.

These pretty little flowers just grew here all by themselves.

We will have to get after the blackberries coming over from the neighbor’s yard. He refuses to cut them back for some reason. We did have a very large blackberry patch in our yard due to the neighbor’s blackberries and it was nice to have the berries, but they were out of control and we don’t want them back again!

Garrett’s blackberries.

That’s about it for this update, will do another update when we’ve gotten the yard all spruced up!

Treasures

Here are the little treasures I got this weekend. Marnie and I went to Blackberry Junction, a vintage and handmade goods show, in Albany on Friday. I found this green vintage ladle that matches my kitchen theme, and I will hang it on the wall. Then on the way downtown we stopped at a couple of garage sales and I got four of these white plates for 25 cents total, the salt and pepper shaker book, and the Moleskine notebook, still in its wrapper, for free! We went on to the antique mall and I found these green Tupperware measuring cups, which I will sell in my Etsy shop. Linda and I went for a walk today and found a garage sale where the lady was liquidating her collection of frogs, and I found the adorable toad! I’ve been wanting one like that for a long time. They have so much personality! Someday I may get a really big one for my garden. Linda went back to the garage sale with her money and bought a bunch of stuffed froggies for her doggies. They like to destuff the stuffies. Not as much of a haul as last time, but still pretty good!

Well, hello there!

Character

For the last year or so I’ve been trying to spiffy up our fenced side yard (or garden, if you live anywhere but in the U.S.). This year The Hubs had put up a tall fence made from large pallets he got for free, and last week he applied some used motor oil on the boards to help preserve them. Did you know that would work? Reuse and recycle! It doesn’t harm anything, but is obviously not something you would want to use on wood that was going to go in the house.

The Hubs changes the oil in our cars himself so he had plenty of used oil. You can also see our dandelion farm in this photo.

Now we have 4 different styles of fence in our side yard, but since I am going for the vintage “rustic” look I guess it sort of works.

One of the things on the “Honey-Do” list was to put up a bunch of things I wanted on the fence to give it more character. Today was the day for that, so after going to Home Depot to get supplies The Hubs got to work. Yesterday I had laid out each thing on the ground where I wanted it on the fence, so there was no decision-making today and it all went fairly quickly.

First he hung up some old windows he got last year. You can also see the metal “Dandelion Farm” sign, and an old trowel he came across when he was rototilling for the vegetable garden this spring. The 50-gallon drum is covering what’s left of a tree that we would like to get rid of. It was about 20 feet high and very bushy with branches all the way to the ground and The Hubs cut it down, but it is coming back so if it is covered it will be less likely to grow in again. It is a very determined tree.

Old windows.

Window and stars, and cherry tree

Lil’ Kitty

You know Bigfoot. I’m not sure why this stump is still here, but now it’s covered with ivy.

I got the little metal kitty from a company in Vancouver, WA called Rusty Birds. They have all sorts of cute animals and other metal art. The Bigfoot was made by The Sis-In-Law, he is about four feet high. They have a life-size one at their property!

Gazing ball, squirrel, container for squirrel corn, old gate, Dandelion Farm sign

The gazing ball above has been around for like 20 years, it used to be sort of forgotten under the myrtle tree and it survived for many years there. This is the first time it’s really had its own spot. There is space on the fence for many more fun things, and I will be on the lookout for anything that I think will fit in. In fact, I am planning to order this shortly. Isn’t it the cutest?

Kitty Biscuits!!

The fence has much more character now, and the patio is getting there with my new bear and container garden. None of this is perfect, of course, and there is still much to be done. I don’t do much yardwork because I’m allergic and The Hubs isn’t much bothered by the aesthetic of the yard, so we have a dandelion farm and 4 kinds of fences. But I am making the best of it, ha.

The Hubs made this fire pit for me. It is also rustic.

The neighbor won’t cut down his blackberry bushes so they come into our yard. We left these because some birds live in this section.

My Little Garden – Did it Survive?

My poor little garden…it went all wonky while we were on our backpacking trip. The succulent with the pink flowers croaked completely, and two of my lavenders lost half of their plants.

Croaked 😦

Pink lavender plant

French lavender plant

I think the Hubs may have overwatered them while we were gone. It got very hot and he probably just thought he should douse all the plants every day, but the lavender and succulents don’t need that much water. I cut out all the dead stems from the lavender plants – the ones that are left on the French lavender actually have some new growth on them so I left them to see what would happen. And actually, last year the lavender plants did the same thing. I will definitely not water them much in the coming weeks so they can dry out and sort of get back to normal.

The rosemary and rosebush, however, both look very healthy and happy. I will be buying a new succulent plant this week for the top of the strawberry pot.

In the meantime, though, I will share with you this wonderful concrete statue I got at the estate sale last week!

My little bear – please ignore the dandelion farm.

Here is how he looks on the patio.

Isn’t he adorable? He weighs about 300 pounds, ha. The Hubs says he will never move it again! I think Little Bear adds a lot to our patio area.

I’ll update again when I get the new succulent plant for the strawberry pot. The other succulents and the thyme plants are doing great in the pot, so I hope a new succulent will grow happily there.

My Garden

At our house, the Hubs and the Girl are in charge of the vegetable garden, and the Hubs is in charge (very reluctantly) of doing most of the yard work, since I am allergic. My part is a container garden of herbs on a little corner of the patio. I can almost always remember to water my happy plants and for the past couple of years they have been growing pretty well. Today I got my new succulent plants put in, and they will be a nice addition to the space.

As mentioned in prior posts I decided to plant some succulents in a strawberry pot, and after cleaning and disinfecting the pot yesterday, today I got to work getting the plants in.

Sand, potting soil, pot

First I mixed two bags of Miracle Gro Cactus, Palm, and Citrus Mix and about 2/3 of a bag of Perlite together in the wheelbarrow. I started by filling the strawberry pot with about 2 inches of sand, hoping that will help with drainage since I don’t have any good gravel or pottery shards to put in the bottom. Then I used a red Solo cup to scoop the soil into the pot, because that was one of the few scoop-shaped thingies I had in the house.

As I went along, I pushed soil into the little “mini-pots” around the sides of the pot. When it was full, I planted the large, pink-flowering succulent in the top. This plant was just labeled “hen and chicks”, but it is quite different from the ones I usually think of as the hen and chick variety.

The flowering succulent in the top of the pot.

After planting the largest plant, I put thyme plants in two of the “mini-pots”. The rest of the hen and chick plants came last, and I squeezed them in the spaces as best I could. I am a little concerned because they were all sitting in very wet soil in the pots they came in from the store. And I hope they don’t fall out of their “mini-pots” before they take root! Below you can see the finished product, and how it looks with the rest of my garden.

The final result

My little garden – not much to look at but easy care and smells awesome

My silver Spanish lavender is a great bee-attractor right now, so I put a little bee waterer in the pink lavender plant in case the bees get thirsty. The bees living here in the Pacific Northwest are probably not having problems finding water right now, but this will be nice for them if it ever gets hot this summer. The other plants are a French lavender (lavender is my favorite!), a Tuscan Blue rosemary which I just repotted into a much bigger pot (I am anxiously waiting for it to do something spectacular), and a mini rosebush the Girl gave me for Mother’s Day last year. It is going great guns even though it was drowning all winter long! The Dr. Seuss-y plant with the pink pom-pom is a Dreamland Armeria. All the plants like full sun and don’t need a lot of water, and that works great for my little corner.

So, will the succulents survive and thrive? Stay tuned for later reports!

Pink lavender and bee waterer

Pink lavender

French lavender

Silver Spanish lavender

Mini rose

Armeria