Rock Garden

I've shared before about the awesome fort I have in my backyard. Unfortunately there always seem to be weeds that grow underneath it in an area I can't get the mower. So I started brainstorming ways that I could utilize that space and prevent it from becoming overgrown. Since the whole area is shaded by trees and the fort only very hardy plants (like weeds) will grow, so it needed to be something I wouldn't need to try to keep alive. I settled on a rock garden.

Fun Fact: The year I moved in the uncle of one of my neighbor's kids offered to buy the fort from me. He would have come over to tear it down and moved it to their yard. I just wasn't sure how much to ask for it and couldn't decide if I wanted to lose my fort. This was right after he chased their pet rabbit through my and two other neighbors' yards.

The first step was to clear out all the weeds from beneath the fort. I did that and covered the whole area with landscape fabric to prevent them from growing back. Then I went shopping!

I chose to go to Lowe's to see what landscape rock they had available. My dad gave me a medium sized sandstone rock to put in the garden so I wanted something that would go well with sandstone. I had also purchased a ceramic owl from Pier One back in May for the project. Eventually I'll need to find other sculpture to add.

My dad has dozens of sandstone rocks of varying sizes. The day before my 16th birthday party we had someone out to work on the sewage system and they dug up almost the entire yard--unearthing tons of those sandstone rocks. We used a lot of them in the landscaping at Dad's, but he had plenty to spare.

I settled on lava rock (despite Dad saying he thinks lava rock looks awful). I felt it would go well with my yard since I have the red brick house and reddish stepping stones. My only other option in that color family was a pea gravel with mixed color stones.

I bought eight bags of lava rock, Lowe's had a few bags available at half price since the bags were busted. There was nothing wrong with the rock and I got a deal! I started dumping the rock into the wood frame of the fort and used a rake to distribute the rocks evenly. Despite using the rake I still managed to make a wreck of my fingernails during this process. If I had gone with the pea gravel it probably wouldn't have been a problem, but lava rocks are very rough.

Once I dumped all the bags in and raked them evenly I was pretty happy with the result! I will need to buy about four more bags to fill in that back section and maybe one more for the main section to fill it in a little more, but overall I think it looks great!

As I mentioned I'll need to find a few more sculpture items for the space, I'm considering getting a couple of those glass globes in fun colors and maybe something in iron that has a little height. I may also hang a bird feeder or something from the bottom of the fort's floor. I'm so excited about how much easier this will be to maintain though!

Warmer Weather

This month has finally seen the temperature creep into the upper 60s to 90s with fewer freezes. Which meant I could finally get serious about planting things in my new flowerbeds!

You may remember me posting about Dad helping me build flowerbeds with landscape timbers and re-bar. Until now they've sat empty except for some dirt and weeds.

This weekend I went to Southwoods Nursery with my mom and grandmother and they bought me some azaleas to plant in the flowerbed against the back wall of my house. Of course, the planting couldn't be done without hitting a few snags. Apparently my sewage pipe is located in the flowerbed. Right where my perfectly spaced azalea needed to go. So instead of perfectly spaced plants I adapted my plan and planted the pink azaleas closer to the azaleas on each end.

I've heard that azaleas are hard to maintain, but the one I planted two years ago couldn't be happier and has required practically no work. To plant them I just dig a hole a little bigger and deeper than the plant. Fill it up loosely with peat moss (azaleas like acidic soil which is what the peat moss is for) and add water until the hole is filled with a soupy mixture. Then you plop the plant in, cover the edges with dirt and you're done.

The next flowerbed we built is at the end of my deck and I haven't gotten it filled yet, but my grandmother did bring me some jasmine from her house that I planted in it. Eventually it will grow up the side of the deck.

Before I could plant anything though I had to line the edges of all the flowerbeds with landscape fabric. Because we used landscape timbers to build the beds the soil can wash out the spaces between the timbers without something holding it in. Since the plants need to root deeper than the beds I couldn't cover the bottoms which made cutting the fabric to size a little tricky.

The last bed we built is in the sunniest corner of my yard and is for vegetables. It's funny that this is the sunniest area since when I moved in there were bushes growing along the back fence that made that area one of the shadiest parts of the yard. After cutting down the bushes and finally digging up the roots to prevent them from growing back the bushes are finally gone for good. I want to plant something else along that fence eventually, but something that won't destroy the fence.

This was actually the first bed I planted anything in since I went to one of the local herb festivals and stocked up on tomato and pepper plants. We have a lady in Tulsa that grows and sells heirloom tomato and pepper plants, The Tomato Man's Daughter. She has a great selection and I almost always buy my tomatoes from her.

Once I had everything planted the tricky thing was rigging a fence that would deter Ollie from jumping on the plants while he barks at the neighbor dogs. That corner is where my yard meets up with the others so Ollie likes to race through it, which may not matter once my plants are bigger than him, but for now I don't want him stomping on my plants.

I barely got my tomato and pepper plants in the ground before we had another freeze though! I cut the bottoms off of some milk jugs to cover the plants overnight so they didn't die. It actually didn't get as cold as the weathermen predicted which was good.

I'm excited to get everything growing, here's to hoping I actually get tomatoes and peppers and even blackberries this year! The last few years were so hot and dry so early in the season that everything dried up too fast.

In the front yard I bought some bushes to replace those that died a couple summers ago and Grandmother bought me a couple of new plants to go in the pots on the front porch with my silver sage.

Hopefully they'll survive, I think it looks pretty nice all together!

Other pictures from this spring:

St. Francis looked pretty nice with my tulips
blooming this spring. Irises and dahlias
are starting to come up now.

The garden bed has some sort of purple flower
that grows along the fence. Lovely (and invasive).

Ollie thinks he's a rabbit.
Or at least runs like one.

Titan, my brother's cat, enjoying
geraniums at my mom's house.

I know dandelions are weeds, but don't they
look pretty making a path to the forsythia?

I hate to mow, but Ollie loves a freshly mowed yard.

Lawn Mowing Monster

Until this spring I think I have mowed for a grand total of 30 minutes in my entire life.

Growing up with so many brothers meant that mowing the lawn was never one of my chores. And until I bought my house I didn't have a lawn to worry about. Then I didn't own a lawn mower so my dad would borrow one and since he was coming out to bring the lawn mower by he would just mow it for me too. After all my yard isn't very big and he claims it doesn't take long.

Then he bought me a brand new lawn mower for Christmas. He showed me how to use it and then it sat in my garage for the rest of the winter. Since my brother moved in soon after that I didn't have to worry about mowing.

To be honest mowing is kind of scary! What if I'm home alone and something happens? How do I figure out what's wrong if the mower breaks? Plus to be honest there are dozens of chores that top mowing on my priority list. As I mentioned in my previous post, "How the Heck Do I Clean Hardwood Floors?", it has been a while since I thoroughly cleaned my floors. Between the dog and me I have trouble keeping the rugs vacuumed! Since I rarely wander through my yard, generally the tall grass just means that Ollie has a jungle to explore.

Now Spencer is gone and I failed miserably at convincing my other brothers to come mow for me. As a result I dragged the mower out a couple of weeks ago. My dad kept telling me how easy mowing is so I got him to tell me again how to start my mower and got started.

In the picture to the left you can see how far I got before my mower quit. So much for it being easy! I called dad and he said I probably had a clog since I had let my grass get so tall.

Now I would just like to point out really quickly that with all the rain we've had my grass went from nothing to almost knee-high in no time, but that's not really the point.

So I turned my mower over and started cleaning the grass out. I decided this job is NOT my favorite. The grass stained my fingers and there were all sorts of bugs that were in the grass clippings. But I got as much out of the mower as I could.

Then I turned it upright again and started the mower again. I got this far when it quit again. Talk about frustrating!

I started messing with everything trying to figure out what was wrong. When I pulled the air filter out this brown greasy fluid gushed out. Lovely right? Now I have grass stained fingers and oil all over my hands. At that point my dad told me not to try to start the mower again until he could fix it. So my mowing attempt for the day was over.

I recently saw an article talking about lawn mower maintenance. I'd never even considered general maintenance on my lawn mower. I've heard that battery or electric mowers don't require as much work, but there are many other things I'd rather spend money on than a new mower. So my dad showed me how to check the oil (which was what had spilled out, apparently I flooded the engine, but the oil really needed to be changed anyway). He also told me that I should buy premium gas for the mower rather than the cheaper stuff you put in the car.

After Dad fixed the mower I managed to finish my lawn, with the exception of areas the mower won't fit. For my birthday I've asked for a weed whacker so I can get those areas too.

I actually didn't mind mowing once I got going. The irritating parts are when the mower quits and that two days after mowing all the dandelions look like the mower never came through.

What is your least favorite spring/summer chore? Ever had any mowing disasters?