Slacker!

Well, I'm a slacker about posting anyway.  I have been doing things, just been very bad about recording them.  But after a long day of working on the yard, I am going to update my project status first.

First, the labyrinth.  It's mostly done, although after getting the path laid and the plants in, I have decided it would look awesome to have a nice hedge around it, so I'll be looking for a deal on some boxwoods in the near future.  But for now, this one can be considered 90% complete.

 So, the last time I posted about this, I'd just started by marking out the path.  Then I went through and tamped down the walk path.  Above you can see how the compacted dirt path looks with the soft, turned soil for the borders all fluffy and nice.

 Then we got a load of decomposed granite.  I wanted the path to stay unpaved, but it'll get weeds and it'll get muddy, so a load of DG as everyone out here calls it, was just what we needed.  I spread that out, then compacted that, too.  Unfortunately, now I can't walk on it barefoot, because the DG isn't soft.  Boo.  I might have to put some sand on top of that.  Anyway, we also planted and then mulched the plants, and then put some starter food on it.  This picture about was from about 3 weeks ago, by the end of summer, I think most of the plants will have grown and merged together to create a living border.  At least that's the plan.  And again, I think a nice little hedge around it would look really cool.  I was hoping to find a cool fountain for the middle, but I'm trying to do this really super cheap, so I am just lurking around craigslist free hoping to snap one up.  Missed one the other day, but I'm persistent!

Another thing Dale and I are doing this summer is trying to fit in some little mini-trips to places we've not yet visited.  So we took a spur of the moment trip to Las Vegas and Hoover Dam, because I had one free night from my hotels.com acct.  We upgraded, and stayed at the Bellagio.   And we ended up going on the HOTTEST week of the year!

Whew! and that wasn't even the hottest temperature we experienced, it got up another degree, but my picture of that is blurry.

First, we went to Hoover Dam, and went on the tour.  We wanted to go on the deluxe longer tour, but it was booked and we would have had to have waited another 3 hours, so we just went on the shorter one through the power plant.  It was really interesting, and nice and cool inside.


I won't put all the pictures on here, but here's a cool shot:

A panorama of the Lake Mead side of the dam.  The water is down about 50 feet, which is really apparent when you visit, but not sure if you can tell in this picture.  Oh, and it was HOT!  We walked part way across the dam, but decided to drive across in our nice, air conditioned car.  We looked at all the outdoor exhibits briefly, then scurried back to the cool car. 

One of the things that I really liked was the terrazzo floor inside the power plant - they had inlaid designs that paid homage to the Native American history of the place.  This is a picture of a turbine, with a Native American influence:

 and an electrical outlet design , that looks somewhat like a rug:






We also got out and walked across the bypass bridge (the Mike O'Callahan-Pat Tillman bridge), which was crazy because we had to climb up eleventy billion stairs in the hot sun and then walk out across the burning hot sidewalk, but we did get this cool shot:

So that was worth it. 

We also saw this cool sculpture that pays homage to all the workers who completed this dam in only 5 years, 2 years ahead of schedule.  They worked 7 days a week, 24 hours a day and only got two days off a year.  But it was the Depression and they were glad to have a job.  And you know it had to be ridiculously hot like it was while we were out there, except they had no air conditioning to escape to!

This sculpture is huge, BTW, I don't have anything in it for scale, but it's really giant. 


We originally thought we'd also go to the Grand Canyon, but after realizing we were going during the biggest heat wave of the year, and there's really nothing at the Grand Canyon other than hiking, which would be completely idiotic in this heat, we decided we'd do that another time.  It's about 9 hours away. (Las Vegas is 3.5 hours from our house, and the Hoover Dam is 30 minutes from Las Vegas).  So that makes it a pretty easy trip.

Another big project we wanted to do this summer was sell (*sob*) my Karmann Ghia and buy a truck.  We've rented trucks so many times from Home Depot to do all kinds of things, and really, as cute as the Karmann Ghia was  (see! Look how cute:)

but it is not a very practical car for us right now.  And I've been taking the bus to work quite a bit, and driving it very minimally.  So it's been a bit of a luxury item, when what we could really use is a truck.  I listed it, had a bunch of people come and look at it, some really annoying people who want to low-ball bid, but finally sold it to a guy who was very happy to have a cute little car.  I think he's going to fix it up to make it more of a hot rod, but whatever! 

Then we had to go find a truck.  We looked at a bunch of really crappy ones, but got a really great deal on this 2002 Tundra.  It is in pristine condition, the guy we got it from really maintained it well, so hopefully it'll be a good deal.   And the best part is that we got the truck for $1200 less than we got for the Ghia, so we can buy a few extra things for it, and also pay for some of the yard projects.

We've already picked up a bunch of heavy stuff in it, so it's been earning its keep already.  And, like the Ghia, I will probably drive this only once or twice a week when school starts up again, as I plan on taking the bus often.  A full sized truck like this doesn't get great mileage, so it will be the vehicle we use the least.

OK, finally, what we got done today on our front yard.  In the past month, I've gotten the new walk path dug out, which was back breaking work but I've been doing it a bit at a time.  I somehow managed not to get any pictures of the dug out part, but a couple of days ago we got a free load of DG for the compacted sub-base, and this is what that looks like:

 This is during our process of spreading and compacting the decomposed granite.  EXHAUSTING, backbreaking work!  And after we got the DG compacted, we had our concrete pavers delivered.  We used 18 x 36s and 12 x 12s.  We alternated them so we had an irregular pattern.  There's a space in this first picture below, we have to re-route a sprinkler head tomorrow, and two of the large pavers arrived broken, so we have to return those and get a new one for this spot on Monday.  Tomorrow, we'll pick up another load of gravel (in our handy truck!) and fill the rest of the spaces between the pavers.  We originally thought we'd put groundcover here, but we really like the look of the little gravel, so we'll fill with gravel, and then gradually introduce the ground cover in between.

You can see the two cracked pavers above. 

We are pretty much exhausted, but we want to get this part done, it'll be a big boost for us to have part of this going!  We also can start planting the section between the path and the driveway, we have tons of plants ready to go!  We also have the drip system for that section, so that'll be the next part of our project.  And I'll try to get more pictures and posts on a regular basis!

No more grass....

Yesterday, we hired some local gardeners to bring out a sod cutter and remove our dead grass.  We had planned on doing this ourselves, although everyone who has been through this program says that this is the worst job ever, and if you're going to hire one thing out, it should be this.  We called over to Home Depot to find out about renting a sod cutter, and it would have been 89 dollars for the day.  Plus, it won't fit in a vehicle, so we'd have to rent a truck and trailer to bring it home.  We might have been able to rent it for four hours to save 25 bucks, but all in all, we figured we'd need plenty of time.  By the time we added it all up, it was going to cost us 150 dollars for the tool/truck rental -- and that was before we put in any labor of our own (plus dump fees for getting rid of the dead grass).  So we called a couple of places and were happy to hear the quotes - 350-400 dollars, which was entirely reasonable.  And best of all, they said they could do it the next day.  So now we have this:

yep, just dirt.  Our neighbors are also doing their yard, and they have only dirt, too, so we aren't embarrassing anyone too much!  This week we have to do a check on our irrigation system, which we will be converting to drip, but we do have at least one leak in the pipes near our neighbor's house, so we are going to fix that.  Then rototill and amend the soil. 

In the meantime, we went to a plant selection class, and as everyone was arriving, signing in, etc, there was a name and phone number projected on the screen, with the title: Free Dymondia.  We wrote that right down, and after class, we went by and scored 8 flats of dymondia.  Here it is in our holding zone:

 We also planted some up by the front of the garage, and around our labyrinth plot.  I spent the rest of the week digging/weeding/conditioning the soil, and now we are here:

we are busy tamping down the paths, and we picked up some paper to lay down a weed barrier.  Because this labyrinth won't be there forever, we are trying to do this as cheap as possible. We did pick up some plants, all the parats that are outlined by white flour are going to be planted, and the paths will be covered in either gravel, decomposed granite, or mulch, whatever we can score the cheapest (or free!  I love free!)  I have lots of plants around the yard that we can move over, or divide and put pieces here.  And I have to finish the surround of dymondia.

Originally, I had marked out a slightly different plan, but Dale said he wished we could figure out a plan where we don't go in, then just turn around and walk the same path out, so this one has an entrance and exit.

We fiddled around with the original plan until we got it to work out, then test walked it a few times.  I like this one, it starts off with a lot of zigs and zags, but as you walk it, the runs get longer and you end up more relaxed.  Ha, now that I look at that diagram above, it looks vaguely biological, like intestines! 

We also made a few kokedama, moss surrounded plant balls suspended from strings.  One of my students created a how-to video in our technology class, and I've wanted to make some ever since then.  (here's the video tutorial: https://vimeo.com/63858985)

So that's where we're at.  Tomorrow I hope to get the paper down on our labyrinth path, and maybe get started on the front yard as well --

We are approved!

We got our official notice today - we are approved for the Lawn 2 Garden grant, and we can get started on our landscape plan!  We actually started killing the grass 2 weeks ago --

Round up.  Round one.

two weeks later, and it looks like this:

it actually looks much worse now, after round two.  But yesterday, as per instructions, we fertilized the dead grass (!) to see if anything grows, and then, it'll be round three of Round up.  Then, rent a sod cutter, and pull it all out.  Probably next week.  We also decided to kill the grass in the parkway (hell strip), although we did not submit plans for it.  We are only going to get $3 per square foot for the first 1000 square feet, and the main part of the yard is over that.  So we are killing the grass on the parkway but probably won't be planting anything there for awhile.  Maybe just throw some mulch down until we decide to work on that, too.

So this is the plan we came up with. We visited a lot of yards and nurseries, and used the online resources to come up with the plants we wanted.  They're all numbered there, here's the list of plants:

1.  Pride Of Madeira             Echium candicans 

2. King Palm Archontophoenix cunninghamian

3. Strelitzia nicolai   Giant Bird Of Paradise

4. Compact Gold Coin            Asteriscus maritimus       

5. Century Plant, Maguey     Agave americana

6. Lamb's Ears           Stachys byzantina  

7. Mexican Bush Sage           Salvia leucantha

8. Pygmy Date Palm, Roebelin Palm    Phoenix roebelenii

9. Kleinia        Senecio mandraliscae        

10. Kangaroo Paws   Anigozanthos hybrids        

11. Shasta Daisy        Chrysanthemum maximum          

12. Dwarf Callistemon Callistemon 'Little John'

13. Lygeum sparteum  Esparto Grass

14. Leonotis leonorus  Lion's Tail

15. Calla Lily Zantedeschia aethiopica    

16. Agastache rupestris  Licorice Mint

17. Aeonium arboretum  Parasol Aeonium

18. Medio Picta Century Plant         Agave americana medio-picta

       Yellow Margin Century Plant   Agave americana v. marginata

       Agave parryi v. huachucensis  Huachuca Agave

19. Yucca elephantipes  Yucca Tree

20.  Pink Stripe Flax Phormium 'Pink Stripe'     

21. Rainbow Warrior New Zealand Flax     Phormium tenax 'Rainbow Warrior'

22. Purple Fountain Grass   Pennisetum 'Rubrum'       

23. Dymondia, Rock Ditty     Dymondia margaretae

24. Gazania hybrids  Hybrid Gazanias

25. Australian Tree Fern      Cyathea cooperi 

Some of these plants we already have, and while we have mapped them in at their mature size above, they'll be little sprigs when we actually plant them.   We did do a cheesy photoshop of how we think they might look --

 yea, someday.  But we were pretty happy with this plan.  

In the meantime, we also are kind of frustrated with the backyard.  Ever since we cut down the large tree that dropped SO MUCH TRASH all over the yard, we can't keep the grass alive back there (there isn't a irrigation system back there.  There is one in the front, although it doesn't work well, and we have to convert it to drip as part of this next process.  but I digress).  Anyway, it gets to be a desert back there.  So we are going to do a few things to tide the yard over until we actually get a pool put in.  We are using the front section as a holding ground for some ground cover --

dymondia on the right, and ajuga on the left.  We want to see how they do in the sun - the grass is particularly hard to grow right in this space, due to the heat from the surrounding concrete.  

Yea, that's some dead grass, and hard-packed dirt.  Lovely.  So what I did was pound a stake in the middle of the yard, run an 8' string out and spray paint a circle:

and sprayed RoundUp in the circle.  Which is almost redundant, but I tell you, when you WANT the grass to die, it's hard to kill.  So what am I going to do in that circle?

some kind of labyrinth!  I like this one (via Pinterest), but I have lots of other designs I have saved, too.  You can look at some of them here, or you can search 'back yard labyrinth' on Pinterest and see LOTS MORE.  

So I am going to kill the remaining grass, lay down some landscape fabric (or newspaper layers), and then cover it with mulch (which we can get free from the city), and then create the lines in our labyrinth with bricks, plants, rocks, etc.  I like this style of labyrinth, called 'Santa Rosa' --

I marked out 16' in diameter, so that should make a reasonable sized path.  

So.....more projects!  Will our kitchen ever get done?  eventually!  But it's so lovely outside, and I can't pass up a chance to make our environment a little nicer.  

Garden Tour

Just in time for our front yard lawn replacement planning purposes, Long Beach Lawn2Garden program sponsored a Garden Tour, featuring 32 gardens.  We eagerly signed up, having spent the previous weekend looking at random home selections from the hundreds listed on their website.  They were hit and miss -- some nice ones, but lots of them that were ho-hum.  So we were excited about looking at some that were top-notch.  When we got the map, it suggested choosing ones you'd want to visit, because the average person visits only 8-10.  That's crazy, we thought, we'll see most of them.
Oh, we were so naive.

The very first garden we chose to go to was closest to our own house, and it really was remarkably different from any of the others on the list.  First off, they retained a lot of lawn.  You can keep your lawn in part, the city will pay only for the part you remove and convert.  So this family had chosen to do the parking strip and chunks around the edges.  The other thing that was remarkable about their garden was that they had a very flowery, cottage feel.  A big difference from what we had been seeing lots of, which was a dry, desert feel. So that was encouraging: our yard could look green and colorful.  Finally, they had a lot of surprising plants that I would not have thought would qualify:  lambs ear, roses, daisies, butterfly bushes -- very springy and cheerful.  So that started us off well.

Another thing that we didn't expect was that the owners were sitting outside, and the first thing they did was hand us a full color sheet that had their entire plant list on it.  The Lawn2Garden program gave them a pile of copies for them to hand out.  It was great to take note of all the plants that we were interested in, and to write any notes that the owners supplied.

The next yard we went to had some great uses of greenery as well.  The gray-green groundcover above is dymondia -- a plant I had seen here and there and always found to be rather unpleasant, as it was always superflat and dry looking.  Not so much in many of the gardens we toured!  This garden above is only 2 years old, and the dymondia is thick and textural, which was encouraging, because it's one of the most commonly used plants around here, and I was kind of dreading using it.  Now I am eager to plant some flat sections in my own yard. 

 

Many of the yards we toured had great features already established - large, mature trees or other specimen plants.  We have almost nothing, so we know we need something to anchor the whole thing.  We saw a lot of great large trees/plants and feel more knowledgeable about choosing what's right for us.  One of the really helpful things about the gardens on the tour is that they had a large, color poster of the "before" yard, with the date, so we could see exactly what they kept, and how long the plants in the yard were.  Online, we could see the before pictures, but the after pictures are taken right after planting, so they are mostly of a dirt yard with a few sad plants placed here and there.  So it was great to see how much fuller things get, and how quickly they grow.

 For those people who had, like us, a fairly flat, bland 'before', it was interesting to see how they built interest using mounds and rock features.  This guy had a dry creekbed type format, with dymondia growing in the flat bed.  He also had a couple of fairly large pencil trees, but he had a sign on those that they were for sale for $25 each, he decided he didn't want those and wanted to replace them with something else.  That's another thing most people talked about, changing their plants when they found that things didn't work for them.  From the website, it seemed like you had to stick with your plan or you'd not get the grant.  Most people had changes here and there, but as long as they stuck with plants from the approved lists, they were fine.  

Everyone was so friendly and helpful.  We got a lot of great ideas, and people spoke about the sources for their plants, stone and equipment.  We went out yesterday to visit one of the most oft-mentioned nurseries and picked up a flat of dymondia and some ajuga to try out in the backyard.  I want to see how well it spreads while we plan our yard.

We also got round-up and sprayed the front grass. We can kill the grass, but can't remove it until our plan is approved.  It takes weeks to fully kill it, so we thought we'd get started right away.  It looks even worse now, all dry and crusty, but when I look at it, I think, "soon, you'll be gone!"  Today we had a landscaper come by and cut and trim it, so at least it won't look all hairy.  With any luck, it will just stay dead and flat and before long, we'll have the big job of removing it all!

Madness, I tell you!

Alright. Although our kitchen remodel has semi-stalled due to Dale's back problems, like a fool I have started yet another project.  It all began when we got a flyer in the mail for a program we'd heard about last year, the Lawn2Garden program here in Long Beach.

Naturally, the part that caught my eye was that notice down at the bottom in green - Receive up to $3000.  Of course, any time there's something like "up to" in the title, I'm skeptical, but I got on the website to check out the details.  Turns out we would be eligible for the entire $3000 - it goes per square foot of turf grass, and that's what we've got in our front yard.  They pay 3 dollars per square foot of replaced grass, and we have over 1000 square feet of grass.  Just to remind you what 1200 square feet of sad, sad grass looks like:

That's the day we closed.  It actually looks worse now.  We knew we were going to eventually take it up, so we haven't maintained it much.  And since we don't have kids or any real use for grass, it's expensive to maintain and a real waste of natural resources.  Out here, you have to pretty much water every day. 

So we are excited about overhauling this, but not so much about the timing.  But I don't want to miss out on the chance to get funding, so we applied and our application was accepted.  Our next steps are to do the online class, then submit our plans.  They do not require a professional garden designer, we can submit a drawing, as long as we use the plant resource websites to list and identify the plants we use. There are also lots and lots of garden plans available online, and we have access to every participants plans, so we can drive around and check out their finished yard, and if we like it, we can see their plans.  Lawn2Garden has a great website with lots of resources.

So we have 45 days to get to our next step, which includes our design.  I'm checking lots of Pinterest ideas, here are some of my favorite images:

 

 

 

 

 

all Pinterest images on my board are here:Ideas for the Yard

 

Of course, all these gorgeous garden photos show gardens that are lush and full, and ours will start out spare and wimpy looking.  Our biggest fear is that our garden will look wild and dry, so we really want to fill out the space, which will take a LOT of plants.  We also have NO attractive features to focus on, it's just a flat, boring space.  So we have to create some drama.  I am looking forward to having a summer project that I can work on without Dale (in case he require surgery or something!), and of course, I am living with a crap kitchen, but these things will work out eventually.  I am looking forward to this planning part of our yard transformation!

Well....look here

OK, it's been quite awhile since I posted last.  It's not that we haven't been doing anything -- really, we have! -- but there have been some other factors.  I mentioned that Dale had pulled a muscle, well -- it turns out he may have herniated disks.  So...that has slowed us down a LOT of course, he's been getting all kinds of various therapies and treatments for that.  And in the meantime, my daughter Leslie had her baby!  Our first grandchild!  So I had to rush out of town for that, of course!

isn't he adorable!?  of course he is -- Parker Jameson Reed, born on April 16 (his due date, his mother is VERY organized!). 

So I had to rush out and be there right away ... but because the IKEA sale ended on April 28, I knew I'd be out of town and so before I left, we ran off to IKEA and ordered our cabinets.  I told Dale he could go do it, but he wasn't about to fall for that one.  So they were ordered, and delivered while I was gone.  When I got back, this is what I was greeted by:

189 boxes. This view actually looks pretty good.  And the reason it looks so good is because Dale cleaned out the garage so there would be plenty of room to put everything. 

We spent some time this afternoon putting some of the cabinets together.  We're going to finish up tomorrow with the cabinet boxes, then I'll take some more pictures.  It's pretty overwhelming, but working a bit at a time, we're getting through them.


We did manage to save 20%, nearly $1000, so that made the last minute trip to IKEA worth it.


The other thing that happened while I was gone was that we had some really windy days, and we lost a couple of big branches off our lemon tree.  Our lemon tree is already rather sad looking, and it has a LOT of fruit on it, so the windy days were a little more than it could handle.  We have a couple of baskets of lemons to give away --

 OK - one last picture of our adorable grandson:

doing some floor prep

So - we did get our stove delivered the other day, but after I got it all unboxed - we saw a big dent in the back panel, so we had to call and have another delivered this morning.  Argh!  But the delivery guys were great, and our new one is sitting here ready to be installed.  Which I'll do in the morning....

With the money we got from selling our old stove ($160 bucks, woot!), I bought a tile saw on craigslist.  Our plan is to buy a tile saw rather than renting one - we rented one twice for the bathroom, and I could get a used one for less than that.  When we're done with our renos, we'll just sell this tile saw on craigslist for what we paid for it.  That's what we did with our old stove, actually - we paid 150 for it, so we even made a ten dollar profit!

This saw was only $130 - works great.  Well it did until the switch broke at the end of the day!  It's a 3.99 fix, so tomorrow I'll get most of the rest of the marble cut.  After spending an hour cutting a bunch of strips, I laid out a sample of the border on the sidewalk:

We tried several sequences, the original one I'd drawn up was a little too involved, so this is what she ended up with.  I have a lot of skinny strips to cut -- I need a total of 80 1" white strips, 32 1" black strips, 48 4" black strips, and there's the center black and white checkerboard of full tiles.  We brought some of the pieces in and took a look at how we're going to deal with corners --

We're working on the corners -- I think we'll mitre the corners of both borders.  Ironically, this is what I went out to do when the switch broke.  But taking a break was good, we had some errands to do and needed a break for dinner!  I'll cut the rest of the pieces tomorrow.  I can't wait to get started!

Getting the floors moving along

Dale's back is still hurting - he's been going to physical therapy to get that muscle mass relaxed, and so our progress is still s.l.o.w.....but I did get the hardwood flooring section integrated:

We are planning to have a place where we can slide barstools up under the island, and I wanted the floor to be uninterrupted there.  We'd found some good match hardwood at Lumber Liquidators, and along with several other places in the house that will need patching, we bought one bundle so we could get an integrated look here.  We will be refinishing the floors at the end of the kitchen remodel, as it moves into the living room, so getting an unfinished floor will save us from having to run the sander up under the island so much.

We also had our stove delivered this morning.  My goal is to get the floors done this week while I'm on spring break, and also get the cabinets ordered.  Although progress is slow, it's moving along OK.

We did take a little drive around on Saturday. I'm trying to keep Dale moving so he doesn't get his muscles stiff from sitting in a recliner, so we did a trip to LACMA (Los Angeles County Art Museum) where I am a member, and he can come along as my guest.  I'm trying to work my way through the museum one trip at a time, without getting overwhelmed.  The last time I was there, I visited the two blockbuster shows - a Stanley Kubric exhibition and a Caravaggio exhibition that were both great.  This time we went through the modern and contemporary collection, and enjoyed seeing Chris Burden's Metropolis in action:

the little cars are whizzing around -- last time I visited, it wasn't in motion, so this was fun to experience.  We also had to walk under Levitated Mass, which is a fun experience as well.

While we were downtown LA, we decided to stop over and visit the little railroad known as Angel's Flight.  It's a railway on a pulley system, and we rode up:

Then walked around the plaza before finding a nearby Geocache and braving the traffic on the way home.  Other than that, we are trying to balance enjoying the time off and getting some work done on the kitchen.  We decided to scrap the arch, instead, we are going to build up the beam a little with some molding - watching one of our HGTV reno shows, we saw a really effective approach while keeping the beam straight across, and I think that'll suit our place better.  It's mostly about adding some interest to a pretty basic setup here.