A Watering Conundrum and New Seedlings

Let me first say, my yard is looking pretty good.  The sod took wonderfully (woohoo!) and I'm really happy with the side bed I built along the sidewalk.  But every season I learn something new and this season has been a doozy!

There is a fine line between underwatering and overwatering and apparently I have yet to get it right.  Our front yard is relatively small, but in order to hit all of the new grass I have to move the sprinkler three times and there is just no avoiding hitting the flower beds.  Not to mention, it's only the beginning of June and we're already nearing 100 degree weather.

Red Riding Hood Dipladenia

So how are the annuals faring?  Not well.  The petunias were doing great until recently, but now they have turned brown and are rarely producing flowers.  The gerber daisies are actually doing okay, but are also not producing flowers as often as I would like.  My initial thought was, not enough water, but then I talked to a local gardening guru who told me I was overwatering and not fertilizing enough.  This gave me pause because whenever I used the old finger in the dirt trick to determine how wet the soil was, it felt really dry to me.  But I took the nourishment advice and fertilized.  It didn't really change much.  What I have noticed though is that everyone else's annuals are doing great, so I've decided the problem must be with my soil.  Bring on the composter!  And I will, very soon.

Sad annuals and Salvia

The perennials are being overwatered.  I completely admit that.  They're doing okay at this point, the plumbago and the purple heart are really happy right now.  They love the heat, but the hibiscus would like a couple days to dry out.  All the perennials are bushy and blooming, some are just a little droopy and not growing as fast as they could.  The salvia is nice and green but the flowers are starting to look a little weathered and they're in the same bed as the annuals which didn't get a lot of soil treatment prior to planting so I'm going to go ahead and blame the dirt again.

Tradewinds Hibiscus

So while the watering has been a frustration, I have found a new love in seed planting.  About a month ago I was given a plastic bag with Cosmos seeds in it and told to just throw them down and stomp on them a bit.  I have to say, I was less than optimistic that anything would happen, but low and behold they took off like crazy.  They aren't big enough to bloom yet, but they are so cute and in another couple of inches or so we should be getting some happy little orange flowers.  I also planted some basil and marjoram seeds in a container in the kitchen and I am a seed convert.  There is something so satisfying in counting the seedlings as they pop up from the soil.  So next season, I plan on starting seeds in the house and then transplanting, by then we should have the garden beds built in the backyard.  Vegetables and herbs, oh my!

Cosmos Seedlings

It's a slow process, but a fun one.  Right now I'm obsessed with getting a composter and a rain barrel set up, and it's important to have projects on the horizon.

Butters Loves Basil

 

Words on a Page

There are many different types of love stories.  Romantic ones might be the ones we focus on the most but it's the day to day love stories that give our lives meaning.  Family, friends, pets, and even objects make us unique.  What's the point of all this sentimental nonsense you ask?  Well I've been thinking a lot about the loves in my life,  the ones that I have and the ones I expected to have but don't.  Living so far away from my family is hard, it's more than hard, sometimes it's devastating and I've found that I deal with that through the nostalgia of objects, books to be more specific. 

I am not ashamed to admit that I own certain books that I haven't read, but I keep them on the shelf because they have always been there throughout my life.  The Elric Saga is a perfect example.  As a small child I was very comfortable with the imagery of this white haired brooding man, so when I found the books on a used shelf I bought them without thinking twice.  I will never read them, not because I haven't enjoyed the work of Michael Moorcock in the past, but because for me those books represent a connection to the idea of "home".  The definition of "home" as a state of mind rather than location was instilled in me very early, so I'm comfortable with the notion that wherever Paul and I are, we are home.  But I can see those books on my shelf and feel an instant connection to my mother and in that moment distance doesn't matter. 

A self described "tree hugger" I'm going to show what a hypocrite I am because I have not yet succumbed to the world of e-readers.  I acknowledge their worth and their convenience and I think that for a lot of people they are a wonderful option.  But as an aspiring writer they scare me.  I have a very realistic view of the publishing world, and I should considering how long I've been witness to the ups and downs within it if not directly than peripherally.  My friends that I consider extremely successful writers still struggle to pay their bills, that's just the truth of the industry but there are a lot of issues still up in the air regarding e-publishing. 

I love the feel of books, the smell of them.  I love to buy books with inscriptions to strangers and feel that strange yet exciting connection to these people I've never met but can touch pages that they've touched.  I like to create stories in my mind about how the book came to me and hope that I can live up to the expectations of those before me.  I also take bad writing personally and have been known to throw books across rooms.  As I get older, I find I do that more often.  Throwing an e-reader would not be wise I think, and I would like to have the option of throwing or hugging whatever the case may be.

I can't explain why I've been thinking about this so much lately.  Maybe it's because I do feel far away and need to explore the things near to me that I can take comfort in or maybe it's because at some point in my life I want to be able to live by my words alone and hope that I can.  Whatever my reasoning, for now I will just have to keep buying bookshelves and be thankful for the walls that support them.

Laying the Sod

We finally did it and looks spectacular...now if we can keep it alive we'll be in the clear.  To say yesterday was stressful would be an understatement but let me start at the beginning.

Friday night we decided to get all the supplies ready.  Our first stop was a local garden center to check out the sod.  Price wise, they had the lowest, but the sod looked awful and they only showed us a few pieces.  After measuring the yard, we found out at that we needed 225 pieces (actually 255 but we'll get to that).  So we thanked the garden center and went to Home Depot to rent the tiller.  While we were there we checked out their sod.  It was more expensive but they had a lot of it and it looked great.  One of the employees there suggested that we order it and then pick it up the next day.  We needed to pick it up in three trips because our truck is pretty small and he said that they could divide it for us.  That sounded like a great idea so we went to the service desk and ordered it.  Then we bought the dirt, twenty bags of organic top soil to try to make our soil presentable.  The tiller was really easy to rent and they showed us how to use it before we left which was helpful since neither of us had ever seen one before much less used it.

Saturday morning we got up early and started up the tiller.  The one step that we hadn't done was kill the weeds and grass already present in our yard so that took some time to deal with.  We pulled up a lot of it by hand and there were still a ton of roots in the ground from the tree that was removed.  While Paul tilled, my job was to pick up all the stuff we didn't want.  Paul tilled the yard twice then evened it out with a metal rake, by that point it was time to pick up the first load of sod.  We hadn't even put the top soil in yet, so we were behind.  When we arrived to pick up the sod though, it wasn't ready.  They were really nice though and got it ready right away.  I had a minor panic attack when they put the sod in my truck, theoretically I knew that sod was heavy but watching my truck lower under the weight was stressful.  We unloaded the sod into the driveway and then I went to pick up the second load while Paul stayed home to finish tilling in the top soil.

The drive home was hilarious and terrifying.  People stopped me at traffic lights to ask me questions about the sod.  By the time I got home though I figured it was better if Paul picked up the third load because I was getting way too antsy about blowing a tire.  While I was gone he had finished all the soil prep and we were ready to rock the sod.  Then I was blessed with a text message from a friend offering to help. 

So Paul went off to pick up the third load and we set to work.  Laying the sod was actually kind of fun and with two of us it went pretty fast.  We had the front walkway and half the lawn done before Paul came back.  We made sure to lay it out in a brick pattern so the seams were offset and then we walked on it to push it in (we didn't get a lawn roller).  We had a lot of visits from neighbors offering insight throughout the process, but we got a hatchet out of it which was way better than a knife for cutting the sod.  Once Paul got back he would heft the sod to us and then Melissa and I would lay it.  We would have been done in two hours flat, but we didn't have enough sod.  So off Paul went again to get 30 more pieces.  But that was no sweat to finish when he got back.  The end was a lot of cutting to fit strange spaces and then the watering began.  We did three sections for 45 minutes each and this morning when I checked the soil was still nice and wet.

The whole process took about nine hours.  I was amazed and pleased that we got it done in one day.  We certainly learned a lot, but hopefully that knowledge won't be needed for a long time.

Where's the Spicket?

Do you know what's not helpful with a front yard garden bed?  A backyard spicket, an eight foot fence, and a crappy hose.  After many agonzing attempts at pulling that hose over the fence and trying to get all the kinks out so that I could actually water, I gave up and started making multiple trips from my kitchen with a watering can.  While this was less frustrating, it took a lot of time. 

So I would ask questions like, "Can't we put a gate on this side of the house?" But then Paul would explain why that would be more difficult than what he had in mind.  Okay...so what did he have in mind?  He had a genius idea actually and today it finally came to fruition. 

Today was mulch day.  I had been waiting until all the tree hassle was over with because what's the point of putting down mulch if it's just going to be covered with sawdust?  While I was wandering around the garden center picking out all the things I eventually want to do, Paul disappeared and was gone for quite awhile.  When he did reappear he had various metal connectors, an iron hose reel and a 75' kink free hose.  My hero.

This whole project took about fifteen minutes.  The splitter was attached first and then a 15' hose was attached and snaked under the fence until it came to chest height.  Then Paul put a shut off valve between the 15' hose and the kink free hose, and wrapped it around the hose reel.  We put the old hose on the other side of the splitter and now we can water both the front and back hassle free.

Knowing Your Zone

Like any normal person who likes to play in dirt, planting flowers was my number one desire once we were all moved in.  Originally the front garden consisted of some shrubs that I found boring and a couple of rose bushes that needed some serious love.  I ripped out the shrubs completely, which was lot more work than it sounds like.  Then I went to the nursery without doing any research whatsoever on plants that would grow in Houston.  The problem with Houston?  It's really hot.  I made a lot of mistakes with my purchases, but I had one genius moment.  I grant you, it was a fluke, but I have to give myself some credit.

Let's talk about my mistakes first.  Considering the difference between annuals and perennials when planting is very important...yeah, I didn't do that the first year.  So my garden looked really great for about a month.  Then came the heat and the drought and almost everything died, because of my second mistake, having a watering schedule and amending it to account for the heat.  I'm going to do a whole post on watering but just know at this point I had no clue what I was doing.  So once again, death in my garden. 

My genius move though was buying two plumbago plants.  These are Texas native, perennial flowering shrubs and they have saved my sanity.  I love them.  Paul and I talked about raising the garden bed up a few years ago and I outright refused because it would mean pulling up the plumbago.  The past two winters we have actually had some pretty long freezes and I've been worried that they were gone for good, but every Spring they're back and blooming.  Again, I love them.

That tiny blue flower in the middle is the first bloom of the season, soon I will have four feet covered in those flowers.

So I learned my lesson pretty quick.  Drought resistant Texas native perennials are the way to go.  Last year I planted a Gold Esperanza and Purple Salvia and just yesterday I planted a Silverado Sage.  I still use annuals to add color during the spring and summer months but even with care and watering they tend to fail me on a regular basis.  My lesson this year was that Gerber Daisies are just not going to make it in my garden.

I kept the original roses from when we bought the house and last year was the first good year they had so I decided to add another one, we'll see how it does.

The Passing of Time

When we bought our house four years ago, I had delusions of how much we would change and improve within the first year of living here.  What I conveniently forgot was that changing and improving take time and money.  Time is precious and we both work full time jobs and have six cats who have their own quirky issues that add a lot to our daily routine.  Money though was the main factor, and one I still like to forget whenever I can.

Fast forward four years.  We have made improvements, some.  We have painted the interior front half of the house and replaced most of lighting fixtures.  The floors are in desperate need of attention and the bathrooms both need some work but for now our main focus is the yard.  I love to garden, but that doesn't mean that I knew anything about maintaining a yard when we bought this house.  I have perpetually lived in apartments my entire life, so I was completely clueless when it came to basic maintenance and knowing what would grow and what wouldn't.  The fact that we had moved from Colorado to south Texas also didn't help matters.

Long story short, we killed the grass.  Killed it good and proper.  I would like to say this was on purpose, but who really wants to look outside and see dirt?  Not I.

But now there's a plan!  We've made some changes already.  We had a dying tree removed which helped immensely but also added to the dirt pile.  When my dad said, "Make sure to take pictures so you can see your progress," I thought it would be fun to share our journey of bringing our yard back to life, so here we go.

This was the yard after we mowed the lawn for the first time.  Isn't the grass beautful?  Don't get used to it.  The tree closest to the house, a maple, was just taken down because it was seriously ill, and the other tree, a live oak, was recently pruned.  Before both of these things happened though, the lawn was being massacred by dead leaves.  We couldn't rake them up fast enough, which in turn is why the grass died.

This is the yard now.  The next few weeks will tell if we're up to the task, but I think we are.