zeddicus's Blog at GardenTenders.com

A Fresh Start #4: Flowers in Bloom

zeddicus — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 05:46:41 GMT

Our garden is doing great. My daughter and I have been busy planting, watering, and watching it grow. She enjoys the time playing in the dirt, digging holes, watering plants, and anything else she can get into. Most days now we walk outside and I hear ‘Daddy! Another flower has bloomed!” So today while I snapped pictures for my automated watering project post I also took some pictures of our flowers.

Dhalias

Lilly

I don’t remember what kind of flower this is.

This Dahlia is already as big as my hand!

Our planting has slowed down due to a couple camping trips and a break to get the irrigation system set up, but we will probably be adding more soon.

A Fresh Start #3: First Planting

zeddicus — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 07:41:03 GMT

My daughter and I spent this wonderful weekend planting bulbs and taking care of our yard. It was a lot of fun. She got to dig in the dirt and get extra dirty.

We planted a variety of bulb flowers that we had picked out a couple weeks ago.

We had tools and supplies everywhere.

The grass is looking really good.

And the beds were cultivated and finally used for the first time.

My daughters absolute favorite project was starting sunflowers in her own pots. She got to do everything, fill them with dirt, add the seeds, cover them, and water them. We have a place all picked out in the beds for them when the ‘grow up’ too.

I have a lot of fun watching her try new things out. It was great the next morning after the first day we planted, she wanted to go out right away and see if her flowers had grown yet.

It was a very full weekend outside. I treated the roof for moss, my daughter and her aunt treated our front yard with potting soil to try to get the grass growing again, we cleaned our deck furniture, played ball in the backyard, biked and roller bladed, mowed and trimmed the lawn. We are loving spring with our new yard.

A Fresh Start #2: First Mowing

zeddicus — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 04:24:11 GMT

I mowed our lawn for the first time tonight. It was great. I used our Push Mower for some exercise and because I think the gas mower is a bit of overkill for such a small section of lawn.

Nothing else to say so I’ll leave with a picture from a park we visited this weekend.

A Fresh Start #1: The Hardscape is Done!

zeddicus — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:24:51 GMT

We just had our yard fixed up. We had a working front yard, but the backyard was overgrown and unusable by us. We also had some serious water issues that needed to be addressed with good drainage around the house.
We hired a local landscaper to help us come up with a plan, and then execute it. We had them do all the hard scape leaving the planting to us (the fun part!).

The landscaping in the back consisted of two block walls each with a drainage pipe behind them which connected into a main curtain drain around the foundation. Around the foundation was also a dedicated solid drain to collect the water from the gutters and direct it away from the house.
The drains go away from the house on each side and one side connects to the drain behind the front wall.

I have plans to build a Garden Hutch to store tools and gardening supplies as well as a Potting Bench and a cold frame. I prefer to plant edible plants, my wife is into flowers as well as edible plants. It is going to be a very fun Spring and Summer.

First picture is as they started tearing up the back yard. I think I have a before picture somewhere, but I can’t find it right now.

The Front Wall

The Dry Creek Bed on the side – another place that was important for drainage. During the big storm a year ago there was several inches of water deep and about 18” wide flowing between our house and the neighbors.

The new back yard

A gardening bed

More planting space