All posts in Landscaping

Peppermint, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

by readmakedo on September 25, 2012 in Landscaping with No comments

A few weeks ago, I really put a wrench into the dogs’ naptime plans by planting some agapanthus and a Meyer lemon tree in their favorite snoozin’ spot. Some dog-mommy I am.

“Whyyyy, Mommy, whyyyy?” – Skipper

This is the spot: A small planter, right off our back door, that sees partial filtered sun throughout the day. It’s an ideal place for delicate plants, and it’s just two steps from our kitchen. That’s why it makes the perfect location for an herb garden. Sorry fellas.

Having a small herb garden in our yard has been a long time in the making. At my last house, we had a Meyer lemon tree and a never-ending supply of rosemary. Now every time I have to buy rosemary or lemons, I mutter to myself  “Stupid me for paying for easy to grow plants…”. To make myself feel better from this embarrassment, for over a year now I’ve been buying the $6.99 small potted herb garden from Trader Joe’s. I start with good intentions, then somehow end up killing the poor things within about a month. This even more embarrassing, considering I spent a good deal of my childhood involved in the 4H program (which is kind of like Girl/Boy Scouts for farm kids).

The reality is, most plants shouldn’t stay potted forever, and delicate herbs are no exception. And now that our patio is done, I’ve got the perfect planting area. I’m sure the dogs will make do and find somewhere else to sleep.

Proof that life will go on for these weirdos:

Ok less about dogs, more about plants.

I picked up 4 different herbs from TJ’s at $2.99 a pop. Apple Peppermint (no idea how this is different from normal peppermint), Purple Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme. Are we at Scarborough fair yet?

I brought them home, and arranged them in a way where they would have plenty of room to grow, fill out, and not obstruct one another too much. It’s like class photos all over again: Shorties in the front, tall guys in the back please.

Roll Call (Clockwise from top): Rosemary, Peppermint, Thyme and Sage

Rosemary typically can grow pretty wild and tall easily. Thyme (in my experience) gets kind of weedy and will stay low. Sage and Peppermint will fill out nicely, but won’t grow too tall unless you let them.

I removed the plants from their plastic pots and immediately understood why I’d killed pretty much every other potted herb I’d owned previously:

They were pretty root bound.

This one was even worse, poor thing:

Poor fella. Glad that I’m going to plant you in the ground, then slowly eat you over time (or should I say, over thyme?? Get it?? Ok I’ll stop).

In hardly any time at all (it seriously took me about 30 seconds to dig each hole), I got these cuties into the ground.

Here’s a view from a distance, there the plants will be nicely protected by an agapanthus.

So far, our plant plan has been going great. And it looks like in between those two agapanthii, there might even be enough snoozing spot for some certain little black rescue dogs I know. Everybody wins!

“Whutevz, we’re over it.” – The Dogs

 

The Plant Plan

by readmakedo on September 4, 2012 in Landscaping with No comments

Remember this? Look closely at the hill in the background…

That’s a lot of Oleander.

We made a big nursery purchase in late spring, with the intention of planting everything shortly thereafter, but it seemed we jumped the gun a little bit. So these poor plants waited, and waited, and waited.

Not pictured in the photo, behind the freaky tikki hut, are a boatload of Peter Pan agapanthus. My parents also found an awesome mini Meyer Lemon tree for us at a local hardware store one weekend. So let’s see where they went!

“Hey, that plant took my favorite snoozing spot.” – Skipper

We planted the trellised Meyer Lemon tree right off the patio steps, where it will get a little bit of sun each day, but mostly shade. I also want to fill in the rest of that area with some herbs, so they’ll be convenient to grab from the kitchen.

“Aww nuts, my second favorite snoozing spot: RUINED.” – Skipper

We filled in the spot under our kitchen window with some more agapanthus (seriously, we had a lot of it!!), and we’re not sure what else we’ll put under that window. It’s going to need to be extremely hardy, and LOVE full sun, because that particular area of the house gets a lot of light throughout the day and tends to be very dry.

And finally…

TADAAAAA! Okay, actually all the plants look impressive at first, but when you look at them harder I guess they look kind of puny. But they’re awesome for this spot. Here’s why:

a) Oleander and agapanthus both love lots of sun, all the time.

b) They don’t need a lot of water, so if I get a little lazy from time to time (I mean, the hose is not right there…) it’s not the end of the world. And it saves us on our water bill.

c) Both these types of plants fill out really nicely, especially oleander which can get HUGE. More privacy for us and our neighbors, hooray!

d) We bought white oleander, and indigo colored agapanthus. That color combo is going to look super striking.

I know a lot of you are thinking: Wait, oleander?? Isn’t that poisonous? Doesn’t she have dogs??

I’ve thought this through. We lived in our old house for over four years, and the dogs had access to oleander leaves and flowers which frequently dropped into our yard over the fence. I was terrified at first of what would happen if I left the dogs with the plants, but we had over four years without incident. It has been my personal experience that most dogs can tell if something isn’t a good idea, so they steer clear of the plant. And at our new house, the dogs never have unsupervised access to the backyard (the pool is a way bigger worry to me, even though both our pups can swim).

Getting the oleander into the ground was an interesting process in itself. There were multiple drainage lines running directly in the center of the planting bed (look at the picture below…wherever you see a pipe sticking up or a drain, draw a straight line from there…), so we just planted the oleander as far against the fence as we could, and then staggered the agapanthus to fill it in.

So there you have it! Our backyard plantings! We’re not all the way done, of course, but when I look back at our plans for the backyard from when we started, it is awesomely satisfying to see so much accomplished.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be in the pool!

(AAAH NOT ENOUGH FLOATIES!!)

 

Work with What You Got

by readmakedo on August 28, 2012 in Before and After, Decor, Home, Landscaping with No comments

Or: Love the One Your With?

As you all know, our patio was brought to it’s glorious fruition last week. I am still really pumped about it, you have no idea how awesome it feels to be able to walk outside and walk around in my backyard without tripping over re-bar, or getting a weird pebble in my shoe.

So now that the patio is done, it’s time to (Step one) figure out furnishings, and (Step two) start getting stuff planted!

We already had a few furnishings from my old patio. We had our boneyard of old wrought iron furnishings in the side yard (a.k.a world’s largest spider habitat)….

freaking. terrifying.

…and this bench from Cost Plus, pictured here in my old backyard.

Yeah I was outside painting one day. My old backyard was awesome like that.

 

I previously had re-painted and spruced up some select pieces from our backyard, and mixed those in with some unpainted, mismatched chairs we had (you can also see them all in the photo above).

[Side note: See those unplanted Oleander trees in the waay back of the yard? We've got a big plan for those! But that will have to wait for another post.]

Next, I found a home for my lovely bench along a previously very blank wall.

“I ain’t going over there.” – Skipper

Lookin’ good, bench!

Now we just have to take care of that creepy tree branch that continues to encroach upon our walking space in our yard. At first, we felt like it was a welcome, quirky addition to our space, but it is no longer welcome. Apparently, spiders are not limited to living in our side yard only, and I’ve had too many spider + my mouth close calls (I thought the only way you could swallow a spider on accident was in your sleep? Isn’t that the agreement we have with spiders? No? Ok then).

So we’ve still got a ways to go on our backyard, but it’s nice to see it coming together even more. Now I’m just crossing my fingers for an Indian Summer in October so I can have a pool party for my friend Carrie‘s visit.

 

Pool Party Countdown

by readmakedo on June 21, 2012 in Home, Landscaping with 2 Comments

IT’S THE FINAL COUNT-DOWN!

After months and months and months (since OCTOBER!) our patio is starting to look like more than just dirt. We had to tear out our patio shortly after moving in, in order to take care of some drainage issues before winter set in.

Since then, it’s pretty much sat dormant, taunting us and our inability to clean the pool, or go swimming, or walk through the yard without tracking mud into the house. Until recently!

“Can I go swimming yet? JUST KIDDING I HATE WATER.” – Skipper

That’s right, we have a partial patio! And the makings of the rest of the patio!

Allow me to show you around.

Admittedly, I can’t take credit for any of the construction that’s going on. I’ve left that to professionals, because I wouldn’t know how to mortar my way out of a paper bag (actually, that sounds like a recipe for mortaring yourself into a paper bag…). Still, I’m really excited with how this project is shaping up, and for those of you who have been dying to come over and use the pool I thought it would be nice to share pictures.

We had the largest, and most involved portion of the patio done first–the brick deck. Previously, there was a rotting wood deck that looked more like a pirate plank out here. When you walked on it, the wood would sway and bounce, which wasn’t the most reassuring feeling. You can see that the brick deck ends slightly short from where the cement portion of the deck will end. This was for two reasons:

a) We wanted to break up the brick area, so it doesn’t seem like a brick-overload (Also, bricks are really expensive!) and…

b) We’re not super sure what our pool reno plans are going to be in the future. If for some reason we don’t re-do our current pool, we could easily install a spa elsewhere. Of course, we wouldn’t want to just rip up brand-new cement to put a spa in. That would waste time + $$$. If we did want to put a spa there, it is a straight shot down the lawn to our pool equipment, so we would need to do minimal digging. Easy peasy!

So, we’re planning on leaving a small portion at the end of the brick patio unpaved, and covering it with slate, flagstone, or maybe some cement molds and filling in the gaps with grass and moss.

Like so:

Source: patio-ideas.org via Kate on Pinterest

 

It makes the transition from patio to grass a little bit more natural-feeling as well.

We’re trying to decide between these different materials. I’ve always been partial to cement pavers, but a part of me loves the idea of having some slate out there with moss growing in between it.

This is what the patio looks like from the house. Try to ignore the BBQ and tons of patio furniture stacked in the side yard.

The framed out section of the deck is going to be cement, with courses of brick running every few feet. Dividing the patio into sections like this is beneficial for a few reasons:

a) It’s prettier this way. It makes the deck more visually appealing, so it isn’t just all cement. It brings the brick theme-through, and adds dimensionality to the overall design.

b) Structural reasons. The sections allow for the patio not to crack. Since all ground inevitably shifts (plant roots can shift things, temperature changes, and just settling over time), you need to break up a solid structure like this patio so there isn’t pressure build up.

c) Removing panels. Life happens. Pool equipment breaks (fingers crossed ours doesn’t), electrical work needs to be replaced, Archaeologists inform you there’s some Dino DNA under one portion of your patio, etc. Sometimes, parts of your patio need to be removed. And it is INFINITELY more convenient to have to pull out one portion of the patio, rather than starting all over from scratch (As someone who has lived with a torn up patio for about 8 months, I can tell you it isn’t fun).

So that’s the word on our current patio situation. As soon as it is done, I’m going to get myself some sort of chaise lounge or Adirondack chair and park it out there with a magazine and a limeade until I look like this lady:

(FACT: To find this image I googled “Too Tan Lady”. I love you Googz.)

Grab your water-wings, I’ll see you poolside! <3

Behold: The Backyard.

by readmakedo on May 15, 2012 in Home, Landscaping with No comments

We’ve tried to make a big push on a lot of our bigger projects right before the wedding, so that once Jason and I return home from our honeymoon we don’t have to live in the midst of nonstop construction. We want to take a break and just enjoy each other’s company (and the dogs’ companionship as well, of course).

So far, the biggest project documented on Read Make Do has been painting the interior of the house. The second largest project has not been documented thus far, partially because it isn’t very DIY, and partially because I’m secretly overwhelmed by it. But big things are happening soon, so I will get you up to speed, and share with you our plans/hopes/dreams/fears/etc. Behold, the backyard:

So let me break things down for you, since you’re coming in halfway through this saga.

The Pool

Let’s start with the large enough to fit an elephant in the backyard, the pool. This enormous, unheated, partially broken swimming pool was built in the 1960s, when everyone thought that having a small lake in their backyard was an awesome idea. While we’re stoked about the pool, we’re not so stoked about the amount of water that it is going to take to keep it filled. We’re also less than excited about the fact that, since it is so weirdly deep (over a whopping 9 feet!), even on the hottest day the water is FREEZING right below the surface. Additionally, the cute little roomba-like sweeper that goes around the bottom of the pool is broken on ours, and we haven’t found an easy fix for it (the threading on the pipe inside the pool for it to connect to is broken). Jason has taken it on as his husbandly duty to be the keeper of the pool, and we’re looking into classes from pool care suppliers to teach n00bies like us about the mysterious art of pool care.

Long term goal: Our dream is to revamp the pool, making it smaller, shallower (less water waste), and maybe add a spa. This is going to be put off for a while while we save up. In the meantime, get the sweeper fixed and get this thing swim-worthy by the time summer hits so we can host some awesome pool parties.

The Cement Patio

Speaking of dealing with water, you’re probably wondering why the patio is all torn up. There was water collecting under the foundation of the house, and in order to make it right we had to have the patio jack hammered out (not a DIY project, as fun as it might sound) and install french drains around the backyard and pool. Sexy, right?

Long term goal: Get the cement re-poured (hopefully soon!!) so we can start enjoying our patio and I can stop having to put shoes on every time I want to step outside for a second. We also are going to add a brick patio to one side, to break up the space a bit.

The Overhang

The overhang off the back porch is being held up because it actually is sitting several inches away from the house. That’s because several months ago, we had to have the entire back of the house re-plastered. Again, you can see why we’re going to be saving up for a while for our dream pool. We debated removing the overhang all together, but we ultimately realized we kind of liked it. For the short time that we lived here before we tore up the backyard (it has looked like this for about 8 months now), we were able to throw a few summer soirees, and everyone really seemed to enjoy hanging out underneath the overhang. Plus it has a fan light, which adds lighting + cooling. Now if only we can get it to look like this:

Long term goal: Re-attach the overhang, hit it with a fresh coat of paint, and possibly DIY some sashes for it (like the gorgeous cabana at Solage Calistoga, shown above). We want to get this space back, because it’s really like an extra living space for us.

The Freaky Tiki Hut

Guarding our pool equipment is a haphazardly assembled tiki hut. We did not assemble it. We are probably accessories to the crime though, since we’ve lived here almost a year and we haven’t done anything to fix it.

Long term goal: Build an actual housing for the pool equipment, so we don’t have to hear it every time it comes on, and so we can house all of our future awesome pool toys (do they make these in an adult size?). Camouflage said pool equipment with some strategically placed plantings.

The Landscaping

Thankfully, there isn’t too much that we have to do immediately. I have some plans for the tiered planter boxes on the hill, but other than that we just need to get some Oleanders and Agapanthus in the ground that we’ve had purchased for several months. Our biggest, scariest project is pruning (and sadly, possibly removing) the giant sugar pines in our backyard. We had an arborist come out and look at them, and sadly one of them is dying so it’s going to have to go. Luckily, the backyard is surrounded by plenty of other trees, so we will never need for shade, and the hill provides us with lots of privacy.

Long term goal: Get sugar pines removed (eeee), get existing plants into the ground.

So, there you have it! There’s the dirt on our backyard…and it is a lot of dirt. We’re hoping to have some big changes to you very soon, and hopefully get going on some awesome backyard BBQ’s and pool parties!!!