Creative Canoe Storage

As some of you might recall, I'm spending my first summer in DC.....in Alabama.  Where the military sends me, I shall go.  However, I left strict instructions with Mr. Move-a-Lot to take care of everything while I was gone (dog, cats, house, car, baby....and my garden!)  So you can guess which one gets ignored (No, it's not the baby.)

I returned for a 24 hour trip last weekend to find my lovely backyarden (It's kind of a back yard, kind of a garden,. Do you see what I did there?) full of weeds, one dead hosta, and that stupid canoe still on the ground.  I had left half of it mulched, and a bag of unopened mulch still sat baking in the hot DC sun. 

All I wanted, and have wanted for a while, was to do a little trimming, and to put that canoe somewhere.  So, Mr. Move-a-lot dragged out the tools we bought to do this project weeks and weeks ago, and we were off!

Drill, Hook Thingies, Yard Clippers

Mr. M went to town on the canoe while I tried to salvage my yard.

Hook Things go in the fence

No hope for the hosta

Two quick drills in the fence, and one double-person lift, and the canoe was up off the grass it was smothering and hanging on our fence!  I spent some time trimming, and Mr. M. weed-whacked our yarden until it was looking moderately better.  I even put that 2nd bag of mulch out (of course, I still need more to finish the whole thing) but it looks much better now, and we are proud of our creative canoe storage.

Now, if only he'd let me paint something pretty on the bottom of the canoe.....

What's a creative storage solution you've had to invent on the fly???

I have a love and I call him Mulch.

I can't believe I once didn't know mulch existed.  It's delicious smelling, gorgeous, and probably good for plants, but did I mention how pretty it is?  I'm currently obsessed with red mulch, which is what I used on the front area of our house (see it here).  I decided to continue this awesomeness in our backyard.

As I posted earlier this month I've been working on the backyard with some help from the folks.  Now that everything was trimmed back, it was ready for some of that beautiful mulch.  Here are some before-and-afters to show off my mulch!

Nice, right?  Take a look at some more!

Anyway, not that exciting of a post, but I did a little happy mulch dance in my backyard with only my dog as a witness because I was so happy with the outcome.

Oh yeah, remember this product that I bought to try?

Well, there's good news and bad news.  The good news is, I'm not being eaten alive by mosquitos anymore.  The bad news is that the spray took me by surprise, and my hosta plant was the unfortunate victim here.

A moment of silence, please.

This brave little hosta got sprayed and is on its deathbed, but I appreciate his willingness to still provide purple flowers and turns a lovely bright yellow color to give my garden some more UMPH on his way out.  We'll miss you, dear friend.

Just take a little off the top, please

Remember the first shots of my backyard?  Well, after a little bit of work on my part, and a whole LOT of work on the part of my dad who came out to DC for a week , the before and after of my back yard now looks a-like so:

 

BEFORE: My garden grows too much!

AFTER: Looking nice and groomed

Turns out, plants grow better with water.  I KNOW!  It came as a shock to me as well.  But I'm happy to say that after just ONE watering, that big poofy plant (hydrangeas, I hear they are called) bloomed some big poofy purple blooms and stopped looking like a sick plant coughing up purple phlegm.  My dad raked out all the leaves from last fall (I'm assuming) that were choking plants and grass all over the place.  Then, he went to town with the hedge clippers, especially to the bushes near the back gate.  A little weedeating is all the lawn took, so that was pretty fast, although all the trimming and such required a couple big trash bags.  Mom and I pulled some vines and lots of dead leaves off the bushes that were dying so that new healthy leaves could come in.

My diligent Dad going to town on the plants

I'm trying to get in the habit of watering the plants every day in the morning when I let the dog about before work.  And also to stop said dog from sitting on these big ferns to take his morning latrine break.  No luck on that front yet.  As for the mosquitos, I'm starting cheap, with this stuff.  Haven't cracked it open yet, but I'll let everyone know.

Please please please work!

Future goals for this space: replace the stepping blocks with something bright and cheerful, get a great outdoor mat to cover most of the concrete, work on that mosaic table that I mentioned earlier, and find a place for that stupid canoe that Mr. Move-a-lot doesn't have the heart to toss yet.

What do you think?  A good start, right?

A Welcome Welcome Area

It's hard to enjoy coming home to your house when the front of your house is U-G-L-Y.  And has no alibi.  I'm completely aware I've made that joke before.  I can't help it.  It just come out of me.

Here's the front of our townhouse.  Old mulch, dying plants, really says "come on in!" right?

My sad little front yard

So, I went with my parents, who were out for the week, to THD (The Home Depot - we spend so much there, I'm allowed to give it a nickname).  Had to make a few trips because AFTER my dad put 6 bags of mulch on our cart, we realized we couldn't get 6 bags of mulch in a car with 3 people, 1 baby, and a stroller.  Lucky for us, we realized we couldn't do it before we bought the mulch.  We bought some...um....red pointy flowers.  And some....yellow flowers.  You see I'm great with flower names.  I'm what you call a pro.

Yellow marigolds and red...um..stickleface flowers.  That's what I'm calling them

Also picked up several bags of EarthGro Red mulch.  I had no idea there were so many colors of mulch!  I didn't know mulch existed until a few years ago.  I opted NOT to go with Sierra Red, which looked TOO red.  Can't piss off the Homeowner's Association (see below) and although I love love love color, it was a bit much.  The plain Red looked just bright enough to go with my red and yellow flowers.

First, mom and I laid out the flowers to get an idea of what they would look like and of our spacing.  Ok, truthfully, we were just getting them out of the trunk, but it was a way to start to see how it would all look.  There were four blooms in each pot, and Mom informed me we could actually pull them out of their pots and separated them.  No, Ali, they aren't connected.  Huh, go figure.  I just quadrupled my flowers!  We laid them out to see the picture even better.

This looks like some type of mass flower suicide.

Then came the digging!  I hurt my shoulder last week, so I was trying to dig with my nondominant hand while in an arm sling and Mom was plowing away with the trowel.  There were a TON of roots in the old mulch, so this was a much more annoying task than I had hoped.  But once we got all the flowers in, it was starting to look pretty darn fabulous.

See?  Getting pretty darn fabulous.

Then it was mulch time.  Three bags didn't get us the whole way, but man, did it make a difference!  It's like going from black and white to color.

What a difference some red makes!

Another trip to THD and another three bags of mulch later and we are looking niiiice.  I also trimmed back the bushes a bit so I could actually GET at my hose.  (There's a joke in there somewhere)

Much welcome-ier!

Now an interesting thing is that big ugly trash can.  We bought it and then, based on the advice of the neighbor to our RIGHT, bought a pretty white gate to put right in front of it so it can still sit in this very convenient location, but isn't visible from the front.  If we had a corner unit, we'd put it around the side of the house, but we do not.  So, we had a white gate (still wrapped in plastic) sitting out there just waiting to be installed when we heard a knock at the door.  Our very anal, lonely neighbor to our LEFT came to our door and the conversation went a-like this:

Guy: Hi there, I see you bought a gate.  I presume you mean to put it here? (indicates the front of our trash cans)

Me: Ummm...can I not?

Guy: Well, I don't know if Brian (owner of house we are renting) informed you, but there is a Housing Association and there are bylaws about installing gates.  Here is a copy of the bylaws (hands over giant stapled document).  I'm on the board (a little TOO proud of this fact) and if you want to install this, please submit us a letter telling us what you're installing and why.

Me: (has no words, but is thinking  "if I can't put my gate up, please enjoy the view of my trash can")

So I completely understand that you don't want someone putting up a gate or fence or sign that has a big marijuana plant on it, but this is a bit much.  I guess we'll be submitting that letter soon.

Anyway, left to do on the front: more mulching on some bushes along the side, taking off our house numbers and re-painting them, and filling in the empty spaces with some big pots with flowers or some hanging flowers on hooks or something.

What do you think?

A Little Garden All For Me

It’s summer in DC!  Just ask the thermometer who is currently taking a nap under a shade tree. Whew, it’s hot and humid, but I’m excited to have a cute little outdoor area in our new townhouse.  It’s small, much to my dog’s dismay, but it’s already got a lot of great plants and a teeny tiny yard that maybe I can even manage!

The yard:

That's right, be jealous of my mad Paint editing skillz

The goal:  A Moroccan themed paradise that I’ll want to lounge in while I drink some tea and read a book.  

The plan at the moment: Rake up the old leaves, cut back the current plants, and really see what we are working with.  I’d like to buy some cute sparkly something-or-others to hang off the branches from my neighbors’ trees.  A couple of cushioned bright colored chaise loungers and a mosaic table (perhaps a DIY project like this one from Fresh Home ).  And an outdoor rug/mat.  

Any recommendations?  Also – how do I keep the mosquitos at bay in this new paradise??  They are killer!