Monday, June 26, 2006

Monday morning video

i can't take credit for finding this ... but i love it.

will try to get a "real" post up soon.

posted by Chris and Chrissy Miller @ 10:08 AM 0 comments

Sunday, June 11, 2006

the end is in sight

last week involved more of the landscaping project as you might have expected. we planted the remaining boxwoods and started edging the beds with some brick edgers from Menards (when you say "Menards", you have to say it like that crazy old white-haired guy from their TV commercials ... go ahead, say it ... we're all waiting). actually, they are concrete not brick, but look like brick. we've bought 2 loads thus far (90 edgers total) ... my car must feel like a truck these days hauling loads like that (and all that soil from the other weekend). i think i owe it a wash and wax to make up for what i've put it through. i finished edging front beds this evening, for now at least. i might do a little bit of leveling here and there yet. overall the edging has gone well. making a curve while going up the slope was a bit trying at times, but getting to flat land makes up for it. i'm trying hard to not get too anal with their placement because i know after a winter or two they'll be all shifted and half sunk anyway. but i am still me, so things have to be pretty near perfect for me to be satisfied.

 we had a really fun weekend ... not working on the house (except tonight as mentioned) ... as Luke and Gretchen came to visit (giving them a break from working on their place also). it's been a long time since we've hung out. way too long. we goofed around downtown (State Museum, etc.), ate a bunch of good food, saw some movies. can't beat that! would have been nice if the weather had cooperated a bit better ... can't win em all.

hopefully on next week's schedule will be dogwood installation. we were told an order of them should be coming in soon ... hopefully really soon. i'll edge the small bed on the northwest side and get started on the big grass bed tomorrow. i'll have to pick up one more load of edgers after i see exactly how many more we'll need, so that will probably be done Tuesday. we will also likely get a load of mulch delivered sometime this week. once those dogwoods are in it should wrap up quickly, just a little bit of grading, mulching and we're pretty much done. we'll add in some perennials, but that will just be the icing on this cake. we can't wait to see how it will look! it's amazing how much better it looks already. it seems like all of the plantings thus far have gotten thru their initial transplating shock and are back to growing ... grow my pretties ... grow.

i threw in a good Hazel picture. cats sleep a lot. i'm jealous.

posted by Chris and Chrissy Miller @ 10:41 PM 1 comments

Monday, June 05, 2006

Monday morning video

this is pretty fun.

posted by Chris and Chrissy Miller @ 9:13 AM 0 comments

WANTED: Ivory Halo Dogwood

the landscaping saga continued this weekend. my Mom was nice enough to come down and help out. we spent quite a few hours Saturday looking for our plants ... a few hours longer than expected. we only know of 2 local nurseries that carry Ivory Halo Dogwood (Cornus alba 'Bailhalo') ... and we need 7 of them to fill the plan we came up with. the place that had probably 30 plants about 2 weeks ago now had 1. the other place had 2 sorta miserable looking specimens. so, we'll have to wait a few days until they get a new shipment in. for such a great plant, it's surprising more places don't stock them.

in other misadventures, i bought the wrong boxwoods on the first try ... so that was fun dragging them all over the place. we got Wintergreen Boxwood (Buxus microphylla koreana 'wintergreen'). we were struggling a bit with an ornamental grass selection for along the front steps. we found some Black Fountain Grass (Pennisetum alopecuroides 'Moudry') at Lowe's so decided to try it. sounds like we need to be careful that it doesn't get invasive, but we'll give it a shot. if it doesn't work well, we can always dig them up ... maybe replace with it's cousin 'Hameln'. holding up the corners, we got Henry's Garnet Virginia Sweetspire (Itea virginica 'Henry's Garnet'). we think we're gonna really like this shrub.

Chrissy and Mom also planted in the small bed on the northwest corner of the house. this included the rose i bought Chrissy a while back- -- Cherry Parfait -- and an assortment of starts from Mom's flower beds (salvia, shasta daisy, blanket flower, etc.). i think it's going to turn out really nice. Mom also brought along starts of my beloved applemint (planted by the shed)... so hopefully soon we'll be brewing up the world's best iced tea whenever we like!

here's my version of a runoff/erosion control system for the sloped portion of the bed ... some random bricks i've accumulated, a bunch of little rocks, and a couple big rocks we've found around the property (there's a ditch/hole under the big rocks). i hadn't really planned on doing anything like this ... it just kind of happened. not sure if it will work ... the next big rain will tell. if it doesn't work, i think having the rocks there still looks nice. once those grasses grow in, erosion shouldn't be a big problem anyway.

in other news, we got a new grill! (to replace our rusted out old mini-grill). found it on sale at my new favorite home supply store ... Menards (sorry Lowe's, you're just too expensive sometimes). grilled some nice tasty pork tenderloin on Sat night. mmm. some "progress" was made on the neighboring houses ... the guy had a ton of trees cut down. bad news about losing those trees ... it makes the ugly houses more visible. hopefully he moves quick in fixing things up.

the plan for this week is to get the last 4 boxwoods in the ground, get those dogwoods bought and put in ... and get a load of mulch delivered and put down. sounds like a bunch of work to me. have a good week everyone!

posted by Chris and Chrissy Miller @ 12:58 AM 2 comments