planting frenzy

As a result of yesterday's visit to Jene's Tropical Fruit, I went a little mad with the planting. I seem to be maxed out on the backyard; managed to fit in 2 blackberry bushes & some replacements really to the crop circles (feverfew & new jalapeño plant) but the oak roots are just too pervasive on the west side of the yard. (I think the only thing I can possibly add over there are bromeliads & other shallow-rooted things.) So, I have officially begun work on the front yard!

I planted:

2 blueberry bushes (one even has blueberries already on it!), a mulberry (yummy memories of childhood here) & a starfruit tree

gardening quandary

I noticed yesterday morning that one of my pentas was looking unusually bedraggled in spots. Haven't had rain in a couple of weeks so I thought that might be the problem...but the other pentas in the yard all looked fine. Upon closer inspection, I found TWO huge caterpillars happily munching away. They are pretty funky-looking with 2 huge black spots which are, I think, to scare birds into thinking they are much larger than they are, and then a series of circles down their back.The coolest part of their camouflage is that they can look like a dead leaf hanging from the plant. So now the quandary. A good butterfly garden has good host plants for them to lay their eggs...and will have caterpillars. My reading on the subject suggests planting in large quantities for this very reason and just assume that you will lose some to bugs & caterpillars. Eventually a balance will be achieved as natural predators invade, etc. It's so hard to do though when I have a plant that I feel so personally invested in though!

For the moment I'm going to let them be since the plant seems to be fine except for those 2 areas. Plus, it seems to have survived this before since I can remember it looking this way in other years.

In other gardening news, I'm checking out a place this afternoon that I found online and that just happens to be over in St. Pete! (Jene's Tropical Fruit) It looks like they have both the perennial peanut there AND blueberry bushes! I am very excited :)

rain gardening

For the past few weekends, I've been working on putting in a little rain garden near the downspout. That area constantly floods when I have rain, particularly if it rains for an extended period of time - or heavily - and it never fails to flood the back porch as well. Briefly tried a rain barrel there but the location is not ideal - neither in terms of convenience or for the obstructed view!

The idea behind the rain garden is to dig out a depression and then fill it with plants and other elements that allow the excess water to soak into the ground, rather than simply eroding away the topsoil. They can be as elaborate or simple as you want to make them. (I just read about a cool system they have at the Permaculture Institute of Northern California that uses greywater in a similar way, eventually ending in a pond, complete with ducks & koi. )

Step 1:
Dug out the area for the rain garden. Not as extensive as I would've liked due to the inevitable roots in my way! For the most part, I filled the area with ferns & other plants transplanted from another corner of the yard but I did pick up some lilies to include.

lillies purchased from a local garden fairtransplanted ferns

Step 2:
Sheet mulched the surrounding area to build up the soil and allow me to plant ground cover. This should further define the rain garden area and also prevent dirt from filling the area back up. The added mulch in the rain garden itself should help hold in water for the water-loving plants - plus it makes it less apparent that it is actually about a foot deeper than the rest.

so far the transplants seem to be holding up!

Step 3:
The first rain since the garden has been installed! Seems to be working. Water has collected into the depressions and NO flooding on the porch, despite almost continuous rain since last night. Hooray! Now I just need the area to fill in with greenery and hopefully it will be a beautiful addition to the garden.

easter (garden update)

Thought you'd like a peak at how my garden grows!

tomatoes-to-be

strawberries...now if they'll just blossom!

my newest babies

I think I am proudest of this latest "crop circle" as everything in here (saving the tomato plant in the middle) has been grown from seed (organic seed at that). I am particularly excited to start being able to enjoy the dill. Yummy.

clockwise, starting from the bottom: rosemary bush, dill, chives & leeks

with a beefsteak tomato plant, smack dab in the middle

the dill seems to realize how anxiously i'm awaiting it's fruition

Spent most of the weekend's daylight hours (as much as I could spare from obligations) in the backyard. I spent several hours this afternoon watching butterflies zero in on the choicest flowers, trying to discover the secret to their flight pattern. Then a bird made a minute inspection of the good orange tree; I wondered if it was looking for a nest location since it seemed to spend a great deal of time looking at the nest left there by a previous occupant. There seemed to be quite a large number of birds hanging out this afternoon. Seemed to be around 20 or so just in the laurel oak at any given moment.

I am feeling a bit of relief and also a great deal of sadness too - this morning I spoke to Tommy re: my decision to step down from the leadership team. He was quite understanding and said that he had gone through a similar crisis a year or so ago. It was difficult to do and, like last time, I almost chickened out at the last minute due to the feelings I always experience after singing. But overall, I think it was the right decision to make - mostly for my own mental well-being. I hate feeling like I am living a lie and that is exactly how I'd been feeling the past few months.

weekend update

Spent most of the weekend's daylight hours (as much as I could spare from obligations) in the backyard. I spent several hours this afternoon watching butterflies zero in on the choicest flowers, trying to discover the secret to their flight pattern. Then a bird made a minute inspection of the good orange tree; I wondered if it was looking for a nest location since it seemed to spend a great deal of time looking at the nest left there by a previous occupant. There seemed to be quite a large number of birds hanging out this afternoon. Seemed to be around 20 or so just in the laurel oak at any given moment.

So I am giving up on Ward's Case for Religion. Instead I've started in on Carl Sagan's The Varieties of Scientific Experience which has been absolutely amazing so far. [It is basically the transcripts from the Gifford Lecture series he did in 1985.] Practically every sentence feels as though it is saying the things that I have been trying to put into thought for years.

In an attempt to balance out this overemphasis on the rational/logical, I am also going through The Artist's Way which I found to be so life-changing last summer. I think the "morning pages" are the real secret. Something about writing those thoughts down first thing in the morning helps me think through what I'm doing and what I want out of the day, life, work, etc. It does seem to be helping me to put out little roots of stability, I think.

I've also been doing a lot of work out in the garden which is always extremely therapeutic for me. Things are finally starting to recover from that freeze we had in January. I think I could spend hours observing the bugs & butterflies, listening to the birds and just marveling at the way things develop and grow.

garden therapy

So I am giving up on Ward's Case for Religion. Instead I've started in on Carl Sagan's The Varieties of Scientific Experience which has been absolutely amazing so far. [It is basically the transcripts from the Gifford Lecture series he did in 1985.] Practically every sentence feels as though it is saying the things that I have been trying to put into thought for years.

In an attempt to balance out this overemphasis on the rational/logical, I am also going through The Artist's Way which I found to be so life-changing last summer. I think the "morning pages" are the real secret. Something about writing those thoughts down first thing in the morning helps me think through what I'm doing and what I want out of the day, life, work, etc. It does seem to be helping me to put out little roots of stability, I think.

I've also been doing a lot of work out in the garden which is always extremely therapeutic for me. Things are finally starting to recover from that freeze we had in January. I think I could spend hours observing the bugs & butterflies, listening to the birds and just marveling at the way things develop and grow.

new floors

Pictures of the new floors. They are absolutely beautiful and still feel a little unreal to me. Completely changed the way the house looks.


Living Room

Bedroom

Kitchen too!

(See below for "before" pics)

I'm getting new floors!!

When I first was looking at my house with the realtor back in 2004, I remember commenting to her that one of the first things I would do, were I to buy this house, would be to replace the floors. However, upon moving in, the myriad of new homeowner expenses that inevitably overwhelm one did just that and I put off the floors until later. (Besides, there were more pressing decorating challenges to overcome, such as the mirrors on the LOWER half of the dining area wall and the horrendous wallpaper everywhere...not to mention swinging saloon-style doors separating the kitchen from the dining room!)

Over the years I've been trying different methods of "living with" my current floors. My most brilliant idea was to *paint* the horrid vinyl tiles in the bathrooms & kitchen with garage floor paint. Worked great the first time but didn't stand up to mopping very well. So I re-painted. BAD idea. Either there was more than one coat of paint now or maybe it was just too humid the day that I re-painted but in any case, the floors are now sticky and the thing that sticks most is dirt. Ugh. And no matter what I've tried, that dirt is embedded into the paint permanently. I realized that things had gone too far when I stopped inviting people over because I was so embarrassed for them to see my floors! (Shallow I know).

So now I have bitten the bullet. The house has been measured, the new flooring has been ordered and it just remains to get it installed. (Logistics on this look like they will be challenging to say the least). I am getting porcelain tile for the 2 bathrooms and pecan hardwood everywhere else. Originally intended to go for bamboo because it seemed so much more environmentally-friendly but after further research, decided that pecan would be a better choice. Unlike the bamboo, it is domestically produced and is certified (whereas bamboo is typically imported with questionable labor practices so say the least). Also, from what I've read, it scratches more easily and having a German Shepherd, it just didn't seem practical.

So now I'm trying to get all the painting finished up (re-painting the living room and painting my bedroom for the first time) before they come to install. Hopefully that will be first of November although they have promised me that it would be done by Thanksgiving.

rooftop garden

OK, so I really, really hate to clean the gutters...but this is ridiculous! The situation has been compounded by the size of the porch roof (can't get the stuff stuck in the middle from the sides) and the fact that the porch is not really sturdy enough to hold a full-size human.


After taking this photo, I did manage to uproot some of the larger plants that were closest to the roof-side. It actually makes a pretty nice place to start new plants. I was able to transplant some of the specimens to the yard and so far, they are doing quite well. Now if only I can figure out a way to make it a little more accessible!

Suggestions I've received:

• Use a rake - the rakes that I have are too wide to fit between the channels. But I do plan to try to find a narrower one this weekend. This is plan A.
  
• Get a high-powered pressure washer - this is probably the most practical suggestion. However, it involves the hassle of renting the equipment and then climbing onto the main roof. This option scares me a little.
• Embrace it - consider it a benefit and use it until the weight and/or the TREE growing there brings the whole thing crashing down

backyard spider

For weeks I've been wondering what kind of spider it is that has moved in over the compost heap and so this weekend I've spent several hours scouring spider images to find a match. And when I say hours, I am NOT exaggerating! I knew it must be some type of orb weaver but even looking up "common Florida spiders" did not turn up anything that resembled it more than slightly. It was particularly evident since this spider has an odd body shape - very conical - which none of the spiders I was looking at seemed to have. (Although I was a little unsure b/c due to their position, I could never get a good look at them from the top).

Anyway, FINALLY discovered that what I have living all around my yard is the Leucauge venusta (aka "orchard spider"). Doesn't seem to be a whole lot of information out there on them but I must say that they are beautiful spiders. They are also fascinating to watch.