Bloom Where You Are Planted. Even If It's in a Crack in the Driveway.

A lesson learned from nature.  I was hanging outside with the kids when I walked up the driveway.  There I found not one, not two, but THREE flowers, all blooming from a crack in the driveway.  The flowers were pretty pink and coral colors.  Go figure?

Peace, love and steel magnolias,

Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

More Gardening 2011

So this year’s garden has yielded SO MANY tomatoes!  It’s been fun to pick off the big, juicy, ripe tomatoes.  I won’t ever have a garden without Cherokee Purple tomatoes in the future.  They taste so yummy!  Kind of smokey, look really dark and pretty when you cut into them. 

I have had more mishaps with gardening tasks this year… Earlier in the year it was bees.  On Sunday, I went to plant some knock-out roses Ava picked-out for me on her date night with Daddy.  Planting the very last roses, I caught my hand on a thorn.  It was about a ½ tear below the base of my index finger on my left hand.  A few hours later, I noticed that my middle knuckle of that index finger felt like it was bruised.  I thought that was odd, because I had not done anything to injure it.  It started to swell, later, to the point where it was too painful to use or push down the tip of my finger.  I couldn't bend my finger or make it straight, it was that swollen.  I looked-up rose thorn allergy on-line and found there is a “Rose Thorn Disease”.  It appears that some roses carry a fungus that can really be harmful.  The message board I looked at mentioned it was necessary to have an up-to-date tetanus shot.  I waited overnight to see if the swelling would subside, but it didn’t.  I called the advice nurse Monday morning, who suggested I get a tetanus shot.  I felt kind of dumb walking into the doctor’s office for a simple rose thorn puncture!  But I received a tetanus shot and two days later my index finger is no longer swollen.  I will be steering clear of roses and thorns from now on, that much is certain. J

Peace, love and “Every Rose Has It’s Thorn,”

Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

Not my garden, but I loved what Pike's Nursery did with these plants.  They look like stripes!

Can you "spot the hot?"

I love that these random flowers bloom in our driveway cracks.  I'm still not sure what they are, but they teach me to "bloom where you are planted!"

Holy backyard mushrooms, Batman!

Mushrooms up close

These are Cherokee Purple tomatoes.  So yummy and beautiful, too!

These tea roses just love where they are planted!

Can you spot the hot?



Gardening 2011

This year we're hoping to finally get some landscaping done on the creek side of our house.  The footings for the house are exposed and have been since we've lived here.  It's hard to walk from the front of the house to the back on this side, with the ground as uneven as is currently.  Doug and I agree; right now the eroding soil (leading down to our creek) detracts from the value of our house.  We've decided to build a wall about 9-10 feet away from the house, with some railroad timbers.  We will need PLENTY of fill dirt to make this happen.  Before we can even get started...


We had someone from Cobb County come out to check out the culvert in our front yard.  There are actually two huge pipes.  One is filled with dirt.  We were hoping Cobb County would clean it out, so that the water would flow further away from our front yard (in the culvert/pipe furthest from our house).  When they came out, they told us the one further away from us is actually meant for back-up only.  Not a huge deal.  They did clean it out.  When they visited, they asked about a string Doug had tied between two pieces of wood, from one end of our house to the other end.  When I told the Conunty guys about the eventual plans for the retaining wall, he ended up putting Doug in touch with the right people to get the ball rolling.  We had to submit the info to the county, the county had to submit it to the state.  We had to be approved to begin the work as the wall lies within the 25 foot buffer of a waterway in Georgia.  Yes, our little "trickle".  :-)  (We're technically not even supposed to weedwhack, since it is in a protected "buffer" area). 


All of the submissions / approvals happened.  We then had to put an ad in the local paper advising of our plans, so all neighbors would know about it.  (They could inquire about it, if they wanted, but the state already approved the plans).  Last Friday, we received the official approval letter from the DNR, advising we're good to proceed.  We can now pull the permit to get the ball rolling.  Wa-hoo!  So we will finally get to use the huge pile of railroad timbers that are neatly stacked (and tarped) in our back yard.  Hopefully they go a long way...they weren't cheap!


All that to say, I have done MINIMAL gardening this year, knowing that most of our money will be used to install this wall, and knowing that we might have to tear up landscaping anywhere near that side of the yard.


I do have my collection of containers in which I have gardened in the past.  They're an eyesore (I think some might think so) and I'm sure my neighbors just LOVE seeing them.  So, I decided a visual barrier was just the ticket.  I put in eight double knock-out roses and 16 "Fragrant Return" daylilies this past weekend.  I left a little entry-way "gap" in between, in which I hope to eventually add fieldstone or some sort of flat stone. 


While cleaning out behind the pots, I tried to pull out some HUGE weeds.  I had ONE LAST WEED left and tried to stabilize myself by putting my foot down behind the pot.  Big mistake.  I stepped on a yellowjacket bee's nest.  They let me know they didn't appreciate my arriving unannounced.  ;-)  I got stung once on the foot (wearing sandals) and ran away like a banshee.  I'm normally not a runner when it comes to situations like this, but they were pretty stirred up!  A bee followed me.  I ran again.  A bee followed me yet again.  I ran some more.  They left me alone after that.  Or should I say I left THEM alone?  Doug killed the nest with the remaining hornet killer we had.  I was SO glad I wasn't stung more than once! 


In the pots, I did plant some heirloom tomatoes (Rutgers, Celebrity, Beefsteak, Beefmaster, Mortgage Lifter, Cherokee Purple, Sweet 100 and a few others), jalapenos, Carolina Wonder bell pepper, a burpless cucumber, strawberries and some other things I can't remember right now.  Our little fig tree made it through the winter, so hopefully we'll see some fruit from it again.


Peace, love and hitting them where it counts... the BEE'S KNEES!
Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam

This year's mystery plant.  I thought I planted seeds last year.  It turns out they were bulbs.  These are the leaves of amaryllis, although I didn't know it when this picture was taken! 

 Hello, Newman!  Staying far away from this poison ivy.  I have not had to deal with a poison ivy rash this year, like I did last year (three times!)

Amaryllis in bloom.

The finished product, after adding 8 Double Knock-Out Roses and 16 Fragrant Return daylilies.  I would say the pots are camoflauged, for the most part.

The left side.

The right side.

The yellowjacket bee's nest I stepped on... :(  You can see the dead bees if you look closely!

The containers are visible only when you get close to the garden itself. 

I left the gap as an entryway, in which I hope to put stone one day.

Lilies of the valley. 

My Grandma Nila had these in her front yard.  I love these. 

I just have to find somewhere to put them, until we get all of this landscaping business sorted out....

Had to pull out the amaryllis in order to put in the knock-out roses. 

I'm sure I will find somewhere fun to put these, too.



2011: Another Year of the Projects

2011 is keeping us busy.  The list of things to do around our house / yard is endless, it seems!


Here are a few snapshots of what we've been doing...


Peace, love and eternal fixer-uppers,
Shelly, Doug, Ava and Liam.

Organizing kids' toys

We have our sights set on updating our sub-division sign.  I can hear Cowboy/Western tumbleweed-style music when I look at our sub-sign, which I don't think is an accurate representation of the houses in our sub...

A new front door from Home Depot.  Clearance price = happy us.

We put a new roof on our house (not taken care of by insurance claim :( ).  There were dormer leaks which seem to have stopped.  In the future, we'll have to redo the ceiling or patch it.  We don't prefer the popcorn finish on the ceiling, so it might be scraped off in the future...

You can see the dormer was leaking above, in both corners...

Doug finished drywalling part of the basement, mudding, sanding and painting the new walls.  He also put up some shelves to organize the garage madness...

We had a dusty, unused area beneath the stairway to our basement.  I thought it might be useful to put a closet or shelves in that area.  We cleaned it out.  Doug put in some new shelves, drywalled around the door, mudded, sanded and painted.  It's a pretty big closet that is getting put to good use!

Our chimney needed to be resided when the roof was done.  The local woodpeckers have made a buffet meal out of our chimney.  We replaced the wood with Hardi board siding, which is made with cement.  The woodpeckers shouldn't be interested in chowing on the chimney now.

Getting a little more organized...

More shelving.

Ever the detail-man, Doug couldn't resist trimming out this area of the basement after he drywalled, mudded, sanded and painted...No more looking at creepy rolled insulation!  Wa-hoo!