Last Spring I purchased two large, heavy ceramic planters on sale for $24 each at IKEA. I love the color and shape. Sadly, they have sat empy all summer.
I recently found two pretty red, spikey plants reasonably priced at the garden center. They weren’t named, and I don’t know what type of plants they are, but they work well with the planters. The red of the plants really stands out next to our green exterior.
It turns out that we only ordered 1 ton of sand. 1 ton of sand sounds much more impressive than it looks.
David spread out 2000 lbs. of sand in less than 3 hours.
My husband, David, really knows how to woo a girl, at least a girl like me. Last Saturday he romanced me at the local stone yard. We went just to look…at rocks. Be still my beating heart!
I have been dreaming of putting in a flagstone patio for the two and a half years after we ripped out the cement lawn. All that gorgeous stone was way too tempting. We ordered 600 lbs. of stone to be delivered this Saturday, ready or not.
I picked out the large stone on top (in the photo above). It is shaped like a big teardrop. My plan is to place the large stone in the middle of the patio with smaller stones surrounding it. Once we got home we realized that we didn’t order enough stone.
I have decided that we should lay a couple of inches of sand underneath the stone to help level it. That seems easier than tilling the patch of compacted dirt that is our backyard.
Roses started blooming a few days before Christmas.
This is the first year that our climbing rose bush has blossomed in the winter.
Since I grew up in the Midwest it is a real thrill to look out the window and see big, beautiful roses in the middle of winter. It makes almost makes up for never having a white Christmas.
People escaping the East coast and Midwestern winters spent time in California in the early 1900s. They mailed postcards overflowing with flowers and lush vegetation to winterbound friends and family back home.
This card from 1910 reads “California Bungalow in Winter” with so many palm trees and plants that you can barely see the bungalow.
When we purchased our house we also become the proud owners of
one yard plant.
Exhibit A) This is one of the earliest photos of our new-to-us house.
When I look at the asbestos siding, vinyl windows, less than stellar
paint job and collapsing front porch I have to wonder, “WHAT were
we thinking?! Why did we agree to pay the full asking price?”
Oh, that’s right, we live in Los Angeles…
The photo captures the lone plant that came with our house (outlined
in pink). I had brought over some pink azaleas and a hanging plant
from our apartment, not that they made a big improvement.
Exhibit B) This is our house today. Boy, what a difference some
paint, our life savings and a few plants can make! I am training a
passion vine to grow up over the open beams at the end of the
porch.
I have been completely surprised by these $3.99 climbing roses
from Home Depot. I was never a “rose person” and probably
wouldn’t have picked these up if they hadn’t been priced to sell
on triple mark down. I’m now a full fledged rose convert.
I wish I knew the name of this yellow rose. The blooms are huge!
This nameless pink rose is starting to intertwine with the purple
flowered passion vine. The result should be lovely.
My solution to our ugly, rusting chain-link fence until we can
afford to replace it. This vine was also on sale at Home Depot.
On the South side of our property is a narrow strip of land just wide enough for a walkway. When we purchased the house this area was a dirt strip. We tried planting grass there and it did fill in, but I got the inspiration to turn the area into a Zen garden as a surprise birthday present for David last summer.
David’s brother Jon was visiting at the time and we spent 2 days clearing the area and pulling up the freshly planted grass while David was at work. Jon and I didn’t get the Zen garden finished in time for David’s birthday. Jon went back to Virginia and David and I put in the plastic edging and rock path together. Home Depot had a sale on lavender, roses, and star jasmine which I planted. My next door neighbor gave me some geranium and nasturtium starts along with two little apple trees and an avocado tree.
In the end the garden turned out to be much more cottage than Zen so we now call it our Secret Garden. You can’t really see it from the street and the only other person to enjoy it is our next door neighbor. We plan on putting a little contemplation bench out there to better enjoy the space.
See more photos of our garden and landscaping.