Phone Photo Friday
10/07/2011
1 Comment | 
Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Art: Phone Photo Friday | Tagged: autumn, cell phone photography, fall, flowers, orange, Phone Photo Friday, zinnias | 
Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Front Garden Expansion: Phase 5
09/21/2011Yesterday’s post inspired me to finish another series I started months ago. Here is the final (for now) phase of our front garden expansion project. Recap: Jason plotted out the garden expansion by cropping the grass really low. Then I helped him put WeedBlock down over the whole area (750+ sq. ft.!). We positioned and planted the first set of grasses and cacti. We got a big delivery of gravel. And now here we are. Jason got some brown metal landscape edging from the hardware store. We decided to go with metal over plastic this time because we’re assuming it will last a lot longer (and not get mangled by the occasional lawn mower clip.) Jason also added a few more plants and moved a pretty blue pot from the back patio out to the front. I love it. Jason did an awesome job with this whole project. I’m really thankful that he loves gardening because he makes our yard look super.
Also, Jason is frugal. (Praise the Lord!) He likes to buy medium size plants and split them up to save money. Yes, it looks a bit sparse now but it will fill in a lot over the next couple of years. Patience, young grasshopper.
The papery, blue-green grasses below are new. I have no idea what they are. If you care, leave a comment and Jason will respond.
Some already established plants now feel unbalanced in this corner but not for long.
3 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Art: mid-century design, Art: modern design | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
You say tomato, I say t’mater.
08/15/2011Did you know tomatoes are the state fruit of Tennessee? They grow wonderfully here. Our peach tree was a big disappointment (again) this year. They all rotted. Our black raspberries and (tiny) strawberries earlier this summer were delicious but this time of the year, it’s all about the tomato. Our area of town even has an annual Tomato Art Festival, which we missed because we were out of town. (Post from 2009.) Bummer.
Between Jason’s tour schedule and our new foster parenting adventure, we kept our garden small this year. We had originally planned on adding two more 4’x8′ beds. I’m very glad we decided to wait until next year for that! We have two tomato plants on one end and strawberry plants on the other. We also had romaine lettuce and arugula before it got too hot.
Incidentally, Tennessee’s state bird, the mockingbird, loves to eat the state fruit. Darn birds. There are still plenty of cherry tomatoes to go around though. And very soon (we started them late) we’ll have ripe beef steak tomatoes. Yum!
3 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation | Tagged: Nashville, state fruit, tennessee, tomatoes | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Front Garden Expansion: Phase 4
08/08/2011Look! A blog post that isn’t about the kid! 🙂 I’ll get back to writing about her tomorrow, probably. I didn’t want to leave this series unfinished.
We got our gravel delivered and spread in the front garden. It’s close to being finished. Jason asked the delivery guys not to spread it all the way to the edges because he wants to had a landscaping border first, to keep the gravel from spilling into the grass. Weed eaters and pebbles are a bad combination… our front window can testify. I don’t have a whole lot to say about this since I identified the plants in the Phase 3 post. So, on with the pictures…
1 Comment | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation | Tagged: front garden expansion, gardening, gravel, landscaping, plants, xeriscaping | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Front Garden Expansion: Phase 3
08/01/2011Plants! After chopping down the grass and covering the area with landscaping fabric, it was time to start adding plants.
Besides less front yard to mow (hooray!), we don’t have a specific plan for the landscaping of this area. Jason will have lots of space to play and plant and tinker and propagate and all those fun things. I’m sure in a few years it’ll be as full and lush as our back garden. We’re using gravel as mulch. More on that in the next post.
Artichoke agave:
Blue Elf Aloe x2:
Some kind of cactus… if you want to know the name, I can ask Jason
Variegated yucca transplanted from my parents house:
Orange Sedge:
And lots more space for future plants:
2 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation | Tagged: front garden expansion, front yard, garden, landscaping, plants | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
The Garden: July 2011
07/26/2011I take no credit for the piece of paradise located in my backyard. This oasis is all thanks to my husband’s love of plants, especially dessert and tropical plants.
We have yellow bamboo (left of the gate) and black bamboo (right of the gate, not pictured below) in neatly contained planter on our patio. We cut these blocks out of our concrete patio. (Anywhere I saw “we” just assume I mean Jason.)
The black bamboo was very determined… it’s roots spread under the patio and it shot up a bunch of runners into our cactus garden this summer. We’ve left most of them to grow because the idea of a bamboo grove sounds nice. Plus black bamboo is super expensive (the most we’ve ever paid for a plant!) and it spreads pretty slowly. It’s really neat to see how fast a new stalk grows. I’ll do a post just on that some day.
Most mornings while Jason and I are having bacon, eggs and toast at the kitchen table there is a couple of yellow finches having breakfast on our echinacea (cone flower) plant. I guess the seeds are tasty.
There is also a hummingbird that frequents the echinacea and the red yucca (tall finger-like pinkish plant in the center of the photo.)
Our patio needs repainted. Or stained. Or tiled. Or something.
This is a banana tree. It’s just ornamental, it doesn’t get fruit on it. But it’s huge and fast growing and definitely the focal point of the garden right now.
We love this pretty crepe myrtle tree.
There’s a sister banana tree in the corner of the garden.
Our key lime tree, which seems to be fruitless right now.
So there’s a quick tour around our garden paradise this July. It’s been hot and humid and the plants are lovin’ it!
Leave a Comment » | Art, Art: gardening, Art: God's creation, Family, Family: Jason | Tagged: gardening, green thumb, landscaping, oasis, paradise, plants | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Front Garden Expansion: Phase 2
07/20/2011With the practically tropical Nashville summer weather, even cropping the grass down to the roots wasn’t enough to kill it. It’s basically perfect growing conditions for grass right now. So… Front Garden Expasion: Phase 2. Landscaping fabric. We used WeedBlock from Home Depot. First we thought the 300 sq. ft roll would be enough. Then we bought another 300 sq. ft. roll and a 150 sq. ft. roll, thinking we could take the smaller one back. Nope. Our front garden expansion project is more than 750 sq. ft. We used some leftover thick landscape plastic for the last, oh 50 sq. ft. or so.
(Jason, if you’re reading this… we need enough gravel to cover 800 square feet. That’s a lot of rocks. This gravel calculator says we need 2.5 cubic yards for 1″ depth, 3.7 cubic yards for 1.5″ depth, or 5 cubic yards for 2″ depth.)
1 Comment | Art, Art: gardening | Tagged: front garden expansion, front yard, landscaping | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Lawn Flamingo
07/13/2011I like nostalgia and a good joke so I’m not beyond putting a plastic pink flamingo in my yard. However, when I saw this painted metal art sculpture breed at a local garden store, I may have taken a picture and sent it to Jason with the caption, “For my birthday?” He got me Tina Fey’s book, Bossypants, which I savored (yes, savored… I actually tried to pace myself so I could enjoy it for longer.) But, being the sweet husband and son-in-law that he is, Jason went with my mom to the garden store to help her pick out a flamingo for me. I was quite bewildered by the big, odd-shaped gift wrapped in a sheet. Ah, a flamingo garden sculpture!
I haven’t decided on a fitting name for him/her yet but we found a good spot in our back garden and buried his feet so he stays put. So far so good. The cardinals and hummingbirds that frequent our garden don’t seem to mind him a bit.
3 Comments | Art, Art: crafts, Art: gardening | Tagged: flamingo, garden, gardening, landscaping, yard | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
Front Garden Expansion: Phase 1
07/11/2011
Jason is tired of mowing our grass. I can’t blame him. It takes 2 hours with our push mower, it needs done every week, and it’s hot outside. So what is my green-thumbed garden-loving husband’s solution? Expand the front garden to create less lawn! Tirades about xeriscaping the whole front yard or killing all the grass (weeds…) and planting ground cover have also been tossed around after sweaty lawn grooming sesions. This crazy talk scared me a bit. (I don’t want the neighbors referring to us as “those people” with the gravel lot in front of their house.) One day I came home to find our front yard looking like this.
I present you with, Front Garden Expansion: Phase 1.
All that was done here was lowering the push mower to it’s lowest setting and scalping the lawn in the desired garden area, in hopes that the hot summer sun would do the rest of the work of killing the grass and weeds. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the area Jason plotted out was only about 1/3 of the front yard. He says “for now…”
Have you seen this timely article on Apartment Therapy, The Case Against the American Front Lawn?
5 Comments | Art, Art: gardening, Family, Family: Jason | Tagged: front garden expansion, front yard, landscaping, lawns | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
New Patio Dining Digs
06/20/2011I wanted to follow up Last Monday’s finished fence post with a report on our favorite new spot to eat meals at home:
We had actually planned on building a new wood table this summer using these plans. But, while we were at IKEA a few weeks ago and possibly feeling a bit exhausted by all the projects we’ve been doing lately, we saw the perfect patio table (VINĂ–). Suddenly, $180 sounded like an offer we couldn’t refuse.
Being the cheapsakes that we are, we refused to pay $60 a pop for the matching outdoor chairs and instead found some simple metal and plastic folding ones (JEFF) for $10. (6 for the price of 1? Thank ya!)
Please note, this table is the easiest IKEA assembly ever! The legs fold out and then 2 wing nuts get screwed on. It took 1 minute. We were so pumped that we moved on from there to start assembly of the KURA bed—coincidentally, the most complicated IKEA assembly ever…
Anyway, we’re loving how the fence creates a cozy, defined space around the patio and garden.
Our first dinner on the new table: shish kabobs with shrimp, onions and peppers; corn on the cob and sweet tea. Perfect.
Even more perfect because I got to share it with this guy.
Yay for one more project checked off our to do list and to a summer full of relaxing on the patio!
1 Comment | Art, Art: eating out, Art: gardening, Art: interior design, Art: modern design | Tagged: cheap patio set, IKEA, patio table | Permalink
Posted by mahlbrandt
myMCMlife.com 