Gardening Journal…

I have decided I will use this forum to start noting the stuff I put in my garden so I can stop going “I wonder if I tried this before” and “that’s a cool plant but I have no idea what it is!” 

So today’s garden notes:
I’m going to try the loosely constructed cedar edging around my maple tree bed.  It’s a pretty cheap option and visually OK – it doesn’t make a really sealed edge but it’ll help keep mulch in and it’ll give the lawn guys a visual edge around which to mow.  It’s supposed to be stuck into the dirt a bit to hold it in place but I don’t want to disturb the maple roots so instead I acquired lawn staple thingies that I’ll try using to pin the edging in place.  That’s not yet accomplished so I’ll have to report later how it worked.

I also picked up some more mulch – a bag to reinforce the rosemary bed, and a couple bags to use on the areas of new planting.  I figure I’ll just grab a bag or two every time I shop until the yard is fully mulched.

I bought a few pieces for the front yard.  In the space to the right of the front door, I put two little dusty miller, and three dianthus.  All in six inch pots, all intended to provide some color and curb appeal this winter and be replaced later, probably.  Both are supposed to like full sun but I figure that once the tree drops its leaves it’ll be pretty sunny there; come spring, it’ll be time for something that likes hotter weather anyway.

I also planted a ferny-looking something in a 4 inch pot that supposedly likes shade but was totally unlabelled otherwise.  Should be fun trying to figure out what it is.  Had no idea what it might like soil-wise; plopped it under the crepe myrtle and I’ll see later whether it likes it.  If it survives, I’ll post a picture and people can tell me what it is, maybe.

Planted a vine along the south side of the house – in between the grape vines and the jasmine.  It’s called Southern Belle Bower Vine – Pandorea jas. ‘Southern Belle’; it’s billed as a fast-growing tropical vine with green foliage, Fragrant funnel-shaped pink blooms.  Protect from frost, grow in full sun.  Was in a one-gallon pot so has a lot of growing to do before it’s impressive at all. 

I bought a few things to try in the bed by the patio and house.  All are things I never used before, have no idea if they’ll like the spot, all were pretty cheap so figured it was worth a try.  First, there was a Diascia (Diamonte TM Diascia, Diascia x Diamonte Coral Rose, in a 1-gallon pot) – a perennial with pink flowers, not real tall, supposed to like sun to part shade, 9-12 inches tall, spreads to round shape.  Said “Heat-tolerant plants put on a lovely show all summer, performs best in fertile, well-drained soil with regular watering, cut back after flowering” on the little plastic marker dude but said “10-12″ tall, coral-rose flowers spring and fall, sun to part shade” on the pot sticker.  So if I’m lucky, maybe it’ll bloom spring, summer, and fall? 

There was also a “Firecracker Plant” (Russelia equisetiformis, Ivory, Lagrimas de Amor) Which is supposedly drought tolerant and low maintenance once established, says 3-5′ tall but looked so small and fluffy that I wonder if that’s actually inches especially since it was in a 3 inch pot and sold with groundcovers; says it wants full son and low water and is an annual. 

And a pair of Sweet Potato Vines, one green and the other purple.  3 inch pot.  Ipomoea batatas ‘Pinkie’ Batata – supposedly 12 inch tall and spreads eagerly and likes full sun. Wonder if they actually make sweet potatoes?

Anyway, that’s the accomplishment for now.

NaDeCluMo

ciaracat is kicking my butt for NaDeCluMo, which is very inspiring. Thurs/Fri are my difficult days because they’re days I’m in clinic all day, and today was unexpectedly busy. 

But, I’ll take credit for the decluttering associated with accomplishing stuff for the wedding.  The stack of “getting ready to mail invitations” clutter is now gone because the vast majority of the invitations are mailed.  The large pile of fabric taking up the end of the dining room table is cut in half because that fabric went to a seamstress who has been charged with creating dresses out of it. 

Went to an anniversary party tonight whose theme was wearing something you’d worn to a wedding in the past.  I wore the bridesmaid’s dress from my brother’s wedding – from circa 1995(?). Amazing it still fit… decided that the dress gets to be kept but the bow on the butt and the dyed-to-match shoes are now slated for the next Goodwill load.

And while I was gardening I threw away a bunch of old plastic pots that had collected in a couple of places around the yard.  Feel vaguely guilty about tossing them in the trash, since they’d be re-usable.  However, that’s why I didn’t throw them away in the first place over the years, and they’ve not been re-used.  Nor have I found them a good home.  So, into the dumpster… Decluttering the yard counts as part of this effort, I maintain.

Oh, and I have assembled a stack of books to “release” to bookcrossing.com next time I’m at a coffeeshop or other appropriate dropping-off point.

And cleared some junk out of my car.

Think that’s about it.

DeCluHoMo

[info]la_directora

posted some insightful thoughts recently about NaNoWriMo (or whatever it is).  She points out that where she is in her life, writing a novel would actually just distract her from other, more important goals in her life. 

[info]ciaracat

follows on by suggesting DeCluApMo, which I’ve renamed DeCluHoMo – De Cluttering Home Month (originally Apartment).  This is a month for those of us who are so far behind on some really basic stuff that just clearing out all the stuff and creating a clean palatte for our minds is a victory. 

So this month I’ll focus on finishing clearing out my home so that I can uncover and finish the dozens of half-finished projects already scattered ’round the place.  Like the half-painted pottery, or the half-finished crocheted blanket, or the crocheted “rag rug” for the library, or the drawn-out-but-not-done projects for built-in storage in the spare bedroom and bookshelves in the den. 

Where writers set themselves word limits, perhaps followers of DeCluHoMo can mark their progress in bags of trash, boxes for goodwill, items posted on ebay, or stuff shipped off to someone else’s home… Or, unpacking boxes from their latest move, finishing up a home inventory, etc…

I’m currently suffering from a nasty cold.  Worst I’ve had in a few years.  Normally if I get a cold, I can be back on my feet within a couple of days, with the help of reasonable medications.  This time, I managed to be really incapacitated Saturday through today, and I’m becoming suspicious that tomorrow won’t be fun either. 

So I’ll start DeCluHoMo slow – I plan to ship boxes to two neices with fabric for their flower girl dresses.  We’ll see how I function at the post office – if I’m a miserable mess of snot and germs, I may not do a lot else.  But this clears out the piles of fabric, also the two cardboard boxes that have been batting around the house waiting to be useful for something. 

Yeah, OK, I know this seems trivial.  After this last week, just taking on any challenge is… well, a challenge.  (blows nose for the millionth time, then prepares to get on with life)

Creating a meme…

OK, in response to a flurry of people feeling yucky grumpy all at once on my flist, I decided to try to create a meme.

Here’s the challenge:

  • Pick a positive mood from the LJ list, such as “accomplished” or “excited”.
  • Define it or write down a few synonyms.
  • Write down five reasons why you ought to feel this way.
  • Spread the meme.

Hopeful : optimistic, expectant, promising, auspicious

  1. My boss was present last week at a meeting where the work I’d done was received well in a very public and effusive way.
  2. I figured out a tack to take for the thing that has to be finished by Tuesday
  3. A really good friend who’s been depressed seems to be feeling better – she invited me to lunch next week, which she only does if she’s feeling good.
  4. Someone I like and admire, but have never been close to, invited me for coffee – maybe she sees me as someone she’s like to know better
  5. K seems to be in a good mood this AM.  When he’s happy, I’m generally happy too.

Let’s see how this works….

This is what a feminist looks like

An article in which the author asks various people on the street if they’d be willing to wear a t-shirt saying “This is what a feminist looks like”. 

Best quote:  ‘But isn’t carrying this slogan on a T-shirt encouraging men to stare at women’s chests? “It is a possible design flaw,” admits Rake. “But on the other hand, if they’re going to look at your chest anyway they may as well get a message at the same time, right?”‘

Makes me think about shiv5468‘s comments the other day about how empty rhetoric in support of a good cause is actually a good first step – if you get everyone saying the right things (even if they don’t believe them), then it creates an environment where people are gradually convinced to actually believe those things.  And kids grow up hearing the right things.

Random thoughts, random connections….

I bought one of these and a similar thing with two long drawers, three little ones for my desktop.  Things look much neater now.  I like Ikea.  I could easily spend way too much money there, which is funny since their stuff is really quite inexpensive.

They should put up some sort of a site where you submit pictures of their stuff in your house – in return for which you get a coupon for your next purchase or something.

On other fronts, have been working steadily on a project for work and another for school.  Had what felt like a productive meeting with my advisor this afternoon.  Got my car’s oil changed and they replaced out a small part that was under recall.  And I decided to skip a grand rounds lecture about professionalism, which probably means I needed to hear it…

Operation clean-up

We did our clean-up activities today.  We went through the 3 rooms that I most needed K’s input about – and cleared out a bunch of stuff.  Our approach was “Please put away the stuff that has a home, and make piles for things to get rid of, and things to keep but currently we don’t have a home for them.”

It was relatively painless, we have another load of stuff for Goodwill, and it was sort of funny to hear K say things like “Hey, I forgot I bought these pants!  Looks like I’ve never worn them…”

Now there’s clear space.  If we had people over and wanted to play cards, it’d be the work of a few seconds to clear the coffee table for the game. 

Aaaaaaaah.

I still need to clear off my workspace, and sort through some piles of my own stuff.  But I can do that without worrying that I’m going to get rid of something that was precious to K. 

Once I get the stuff cleared out and the professional repairs done (tree removal, roof replacement) then it’ll be lots easier to embark on my own improvement projects indoors and out, without feeling worried that later work will undo my efforts.

Am thinking about the pros and cons of hiring an electrician to rewire the house, versus doing it piecemeal myself as I do other improvements room-by-room.

Also wondering about the cost of replacement windows, and how hard they’d be to do myself.

While I’m jealous of the weather that auspeople are experiencing, I still am enjoying the somewhat cooler temperatures here and still determined to bring my garden back from the dead.  Or the jungle, as this is Houston. 

I decided to get out and plant the last of the stuff I’d bought at the nursery along with a couple things I’d had sitting around potted for too long.  Everything went  in a big circle around the dripline of my young maple tree.  So I planted a couple Rose-of-Sharon bushes, a Nandina (might be a dwarf – don’t remember), three mums, a lantana, and a couple of butterfly plants.  Arranged so that the view from the house or patio should be relatively nice – short ones near the front, taller near the back. 

In spring, the ROS blooms pink fading to white, and the nandina makes sprays of white/yellow flowers.  By early summer, the nandina’s flowers have turned to bright red berries.  Lantana and butterfly bush get started by mid-summer; the lantana flowers are yellow and the butterfly bush are red-orange.  By late summer, the mums (two yellow, one orange) kick in and the fall color should include the nandina leaves turning to red, the mums and butterfly bush and lantana all giving a bright show in the yellow-to-red spectrum.  Mums generally keep on producing all winter, and the nandina stays bright that whole time.  So if they all survive, should be a nice patch.  Especially nice in the spring and fall, when you really want to sit on the patio.

Thunder started when I still had several plants left to put in the ground.  I rushed to beat the weather; my frequent anxious glances at the rapidly darkening sky did let me appreciate a rather impressive sunset.  Got everything planted, and was spreading a layer of newspaper as a weed barrier to kill off the remaining bits of lawn between and around them (the plan was to cover that with a nice thick layer of mulch).  Fat raindrops started hitting me, but I kept working until the sky fell in and the lightning started flashing.  At that point, acknowledged that there are smarter things to do than to work under a tree in a thunderstorm.

So I’ll need to go back out and spread more newspapers, then a nice thick mulch layer.  I’m thinking of surrounding the whole thing with a meandering cobble-stone-y walkway.  We’ll see how far I get.

I’m realizing (reference above walkway idea) that the really great gardens don’t just have neat plants.  They also have well-though-out hardscape.  Pathways, benches, planters, retaining walls and edging, even a little potting shed will make my garden much more pleasant.

And tiki torches.  Must get some stands in place so I can put out and light the tiki torches.  Citronella oil will drive the insects away and I can sit on the patio in the flickering torchlight with a glass of wine, and contemplate my little patch of suburbia. 

Now for a late dinner and maybe I’ll seduce K for the evening’s entertainment  🙂

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