Front Garden Expansion: Phase 5

09/21/2011

Yesterday’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.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

You say tomato, I say t’mater.

08/15/2011

Did 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!

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Front Garden Expansion: Phase 4

08/08/2011

Look! 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…

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Front Garden Expansion: Phase 3

08/01/2011

Plants! 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:

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The Garden: July 2011

07/26/2011

I 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!

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Phone Photo Friday

06/10/2011

Double Feature: Our black raspberry bush has been doing great this year! I’m getting a handful like this everyday. Perhaps I should thank the cicadas for keeping the birds busy and full…

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Cicada Invasion!

06/06/2011

Run for your lives!

Seriously, we have a bizarre and fascinating, also annoying and disgusting, phenomenon going on in Nashville right now. Every 13 years by Divine clockwork, hundreds, thousands, millions? of cicadas (Magicicadas to be exact) emerge from the ground, sing, mate, lay eggs and die. All in the span of 4-6 weeks. We’re about 3 weeks into the madness right now. It’s not just a few cicadas here and there; it’s ear-piercing loud at 3pm. It’s crunchy steps through the parking lot. It’s swatting and yelping every time we’re outside. It’s cleaning splatters off the windshield several times a day. They don’t call it an invasion for nothing.

This guy (or girl) is one of the many that likes hanging out on our bamboo. Smile!

The whole event is really quite strange and I’m glad it’s almost over. Thankfully, the bugs are pretty harmless. They don’t bite. They don’t prey on other creatures. They don’t eat crops or plants. They drink the sap from trees and blades of grass. The only harm they do is cutting slits into small tree branches when the females lay their eggs. But in the grand scheme of things, this is actually a benefit — this process prunes trees and aerates the ground, so I’m told. Here’s our newly planted pear tree. Can you see the cicadas?

How about now? Can you see them?

Oh, there they are. And… this is when Lucy and I got creeped out and ran for the house. She’s OK with them until they squawk. Then she gets freaked out. And boy to they squawk. And chirp. And buzz.

The posters below (and a few others) are designed by Anderson Design Group to commemorate this crazy occasion. Anyone need a birthday gift idea for me? They’re available at CicadaInvasion.com.

If you haven’t had enough yet, check out this video I shot through the window of the conference room at work last week. My office is on the 4th floor so it’s right in the tree tops. The cicadas are so loud that I can hear them from my desk which is through a cubicle wall, a hallway, an office and a thick glass window. In the video you can hear them pinging and ponging off the window. They’re pretty clumsy.

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Summer Days (Daze?)

06/01/2011

It’s been a busy past few days and I don’t have time to write any of the posts I have in my mind to write. For now, here’s a picture of where Jason and I have been eating a lot of our meals lately:

And an update on recent goings-on:

• We’re 2/3 of the way through our foster parent certification. Paperwork is done. Classes are done. We’re waiting for the home study writer to contact us to set up home study interviews. We’ve been waiting for 2 weeks and it’s been a relief, actually. It kind of feels like the calm before a storm. Not that we’re dreading it but we’re just savoring the (potentially) last few weeks of just the two of us.

• But, of course we’re staying busy! We have the kids room almost all the way finished. There are just a few pieces of art left to hang on the walls. When it’s all done I’ll do a proper photo tour. And we’ve been painting. Now seemed like a good time to paint the rest of the house. So far we have the living room (and the kids room) done. The kitchen, master bedroom and hallway are next in line. The project to do list that’s taped on the wall of our hallway is almost done.

• Our new van has one tire that’s mysteriously worn much more than the other 3. We’ve been planning to replace all 4 tires soon. After an almost-blow-out last night (we have a rubber flapper), now is the time to replace all four. We were hoping we could wait a few months but ack! Oh well.

• Have you heard about the cicada invasion in the middle Tennessee area? It’s a 13-year cycle. I’ll post more about that later in case you’re curious…

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Shade Cloth Canopy for the Pergola

05/30/2011

A few summers ago Jason and I built a simple pergola out of 4x4s and 2x4s for our back patio. We used “bamboo” reed screens to create shade over the top for the first 2 years but they gradually disintegrated. After a year with no shade over our patio dining area, we decided on a new solution this year.

It’s called black shade cloth and it supposedly creates 70% shade. We knew we didn’t want anything solid enough to keep rain out (though that would be nice) because our pergola isn’t heavy enough to withstand high speed winds that we have occasionally when storm fronts move through.

Our pergola is 12×12 so we had a shade cloth custom cut to our dimensions from MyTarp.com. I think it cost around $79. We were concerned that it was too big when we first opened it up but it ended up being just perfect and we installed it using J-hooks on the top of the pergola. (The shade cloth comes with metal grommets every 1.5′ or so.)

We’re loving this new shady spot to eat!

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Posted by mahlbrandt

Being Fruitful

04/18/2011

We haven’t planned many vegetables this year. Arugula. Romaine lettuce. Tomatoes. And tomatoes can technically be considered a fruit. But we have 3 strawberry plants, a black raspberry bush and a peach tree already established. This year we added 2 cherry trees and a pear (Black Tartarian Sweet Cherry and Stella Sweet Cherry to cross pollinate, and Keiffer Pear which is self-pollinating.) The new trees are pretty much just a twig with some leaves … we definitely won’t be getting any fruit from them this year.

(Unfinished side of the fence…) From left to right the arrows point to: cherry, peach, pear, cherry.

From the other end of the yard:

Our peach tree. Last year we had pests. The year before mold. We think we’ve solved both problems and we have really high hopes this year!

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