Then, Now and Around the Yard

It is always fun to look at what things looked like before you start adjusting things to the way you want them. Sometimes I have ideas and I can see the end product, but Jeff just thinks I am digging up lawn and has  a hard time visualizing the final "look." This of course isn't how I want things in the end, but it IS progressing! When we first moved in (a year and a couple months ago) we looked at an empty lot next door. I put up privacy ribbon which is awesome. Then I planted a few one gallon pots of different gingers I had moved from the other place. Now we see 14 foot torch gingers and ferns and irises from the window
instead of weeds!

The side of the house as well as the rest of the yard was just lawn. The lawn is fine but boring. It was lawn with trees sticking up out of it and lawn going all the way up to the house and the wall. I started digging up lawn and putting in a curved planting bed. I put in very small plants I brought from the other place. They are starting to fill in nicely. It helps that I painted the house as well.

I am a believer in fences and walls but don't like lawn going straight up to them. To soften them I have been propagating plants I already have and slowly moving them out to other places in the yard. This long stretch of wall will look great after a wet season I think.

After lots of misguided attempts at growing lettuce I have finally gotten it worked out! I tried direct seeding and it washed away or rotted. I built cinder block beds and the soil was too dry or wet. I finally got cement mixing trays and a rain gutter and seeded them in there and it didn't work.  I would come out and a flock of birds would fly out of the area or cats were curled up on top of the seeded soil ...curled up snoozing in my trays! What works is to start the lettuce in seed starter and seed starter plastic trays and then move them out into the big trays when they are crowded. Now we have loads of fresh lettuce and eat salads every night! I like bib lettuce the best.



The flower on the left is a rattlesnake calathea and the bottom one is a special dark red/black hibiscus. Lots of stuff in the yard to smell, to eat, and to look at!