2015-04-16 Flower beds

I like to tell stories with my photos.  When you describe an
event with photos, it becomes a photo essay.

I've been sharing photo essays with family and friends for a long time.
This one is about the improvements Linda has been making around the house lately.

She's been beautifying around the house, deck, pool, and storage buildings.  The
weather's been nice, cool, and wet.  Today it was perfect in the low 60s and breezy.

But let me give you some background.



Y'all may be familiar with the raised bed I planted 2 years ago.  We bought some strawberries.
I planted chives.  The stuff took off!  See the purple flowers?  Those are chives.  See the red flowers?  
Those are strawberries.  See the leafy green stuff?  Those are weeds.  Ooops!



After weeding you can see the strawberry plants a lot better.
At the end on the right is cilantro.



My grape vines are Muscadine grapes, the Scuppernong variety.  They grow well in the south



I also bought two young plum trees which seem to be doing well in their second year.



You may recall I wrote about the Bird Girl in the new rose garden.  Linda had to
move her roses when we got a pool.  That's our pool cover on the left by the tree.



Linda wants to put a "Y" shaped flag pole at the rear with the American flag on one side
and a Christian flag on the other.  In this photo our grandson had just dug the post hole
and put an 8 foot landscape timber in it.  Linda and I later backfilled the hole and tamped
down the earth.  We'll let it settle and dry out some after the rains leave then mount flags.



These are some of the decorations Linda put by the steps.



The adjoining flower bed has a plastic border and is planted with Azaleas and Marigolds.
The other flower beds are bordered with landscape timbers.  They're in the next photo.



This is the opposite side of the deck by the crape myrtle tree.  She has 
landscape timbers here.  That's mostly what this photo essay is about.  I
promised my cousin Phyllis I'd send her these photos so I thought I'd
just create a web page and share them with everyone.



We got the landscape timbers on sale at Home Depot for less than $2 each.  Last time I saw
them on "sale" they were $2.98.  I think that's what I paid when I built the raised bed.
We'll probably go back and get some more if that price holds out.



You can't see them in the above photo but at the other end the deck closes to the house is
where Linda planted her Hydrangeas.  They have really grown.



Along the back of the house you can see where Linda moved her bed of Day Lillies.
When we built the deck they had to be moved from the old bed which is shown in
the first photo of the photo essay about
 building the deck.

I sent a link to a few family and friends about the Deck Underpinning.  In those
photos (example below) I mentioned that the scrap lumber Linda placed for a border
was only temporary.  She just put it there to kill grass and weeds 'til we could get the
landscape timbers.



Today, she replaced them.



She got our grandson to do most of the heavy work.  Linda told us where to align them.



The timber laid below hasn't been trimmed yet.



After a little chain saw work, here it is trimmed to fit.



She planted flower beds with a border around both storage buildings.  Here below 
she transplanted Lantana (butterfly plants) which, unfortunately didn't survive.



We moved a climbing rose to this end of one storage building.



On the left is a kettle my cousin Jean gave me.  (thanks cousin!)  

Linda will paint the 3 upside-down flower pots then add a solar lamp at the top to look
like a little lighthouse.  We only live 2-1/2 hours from the coast so there are lots of
lighthouses we could model.

Behind the lighthouse are 2 azaleas.  Along the front Linda planted Phlox.



While she was buying plants I asked Linda, "What about something to eat!"  So she
got these two tomato plants and put them either side of the yard swing.  That's them
circled in yellow.  Later we can swing and eat homegrown 'maters.



In front of the house, these are boxwood hedges and a red leaf flowering shrub on either side of the
steps.  On the other end of the house are tall Althea shrubs. 
In front we have Crape Myrtle trees and young Azaleas.

The lawn is made of Bermuda, Centipede, Nut Sedge, Crab Grass, Bahia, and other weeds.
We have one large Pine, two large Chinaberry trees, & a half dozen Eastern Cottonwoods.
Besides the Crape Myrtles, the property is otherwise treeless.





Here on the patio table are Pinapple Sage and Lavender which Linda says chases off the mosquitoes.
I'll be happy to see her plant these and hope they flourish.



After all the hard work, I got Linda and our grandson to give me this silly pose.



 
~ END ~