Friday, April 15, 2016

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day April 2016

I love April. Our front garden is dressed like a pretty pretty princess.
 
Cornus florida and Camassia leichtlinii 'Blue Danube'

Othonna cheirifolia

Sedum parmeri

Gaultheria Shallon

Myosotis sylvatica 'Victoria Blue'

Loropetalum chinensis 'Sizzling Pink'

Convallaria majalis

Prosartes hookeri

Disporum cantoniense 'Night Heron'

Maianthemum racemosum

Camassia leichtlinii 'Blue Danube'
 
Lewisia cotyledon

Tulipa 'Black Parrot'

Lewisia cotyledon 'White Splendor'

A happy bloom day to you and thank you to Carol, our host at May Dreams Gardens!

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

A clean slate

Big plans are afoot here. After dealing with a poorly sited Western red cedar for seven years, I've decided to have it removed.


While I was completing all the measurements required by the city, I discovered that the root flare is 30 inches from my neighbor's foundation (and getting closer every year). 


It also ate his hose bib. I feel bad now for not removing it earlier. It has created fencing challenges and I couldn't be happier to see it go. With the tree gone we can safely build our platform deck as far over as we want without worrying about doing root damage.



While I'm at it, I'm going to tear out the boxwood located in the corner of the yard. I never removed it before because I figured nothing else would be able to get up to size with competition from a mature tree.



And while I'm dismantling the fence and digging up all of the plants in this area, I'm considering removing the pieris too. I'm conflicted about this one, because it's evergreen and established and it requires no water BUT I just don't love it. And as long as I'm having someone grind out stumps, I might as well have them grind that one too. It also has a filbert tree sprouting right next to it that we can't seem to eradicate.



All of this means that I have a huge new area where I can plant the shrubs and trees I've always wanted to plant. On the short list for a replacement tree is Magnoila macrophylla var. Ashei. I love the huge leaves and I covet Clifford, Loree's Magnolia macrophylla. My tentative plan is something like this:

Click to embiggen

I came home from Xera with an olive tree (Olea europaea 'Frantoio') for the corner. Greg and Paul said it gets up to size quickly, requires little water, and has fantastic winter interest.

Photo source

I had been considering Arbutus unedo but Paul warned me that they are very messy. Also on the list currently:



I have two existing Mahonia ('Underway' and 'Winter Sun') that will get moved a bit. I also have a golden ninebark (Physocarpus opulifolius 'Nugget') that I'd like to keep in the area.

If you had a blank slate, what shrubs would you plant? Would you keep the pieris? I'm on a standard city lot, so my room for large shrubs is limited and I want to plant ones that I'll be completely in love with. Any opinions are welcome!

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day March 2016

This March feels less floriferous than usual, I think because we had such an usually early spring last year. The hellebores are still going and the daphne is winding down.

Mahonia nervosa

Arctostaphylos x 'John Dourley'

Geranium macrorrhizum

Arctostaphylos bakeri 'Louis Edmonds'

Epimedium

Epimedium x 'Black Sea'

Pieris japonica

Mukdenia rossii 'Crimson Fans'

A happy bloom day to you! Thanks to our host, Carol.

Monday, February 15, 2016

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day February 2016

A very happy bloom day to you!

Euphorbia rigida

Euphorbia x 'Blackbird'

Helleborus x 'Black Diamond'

Daphne odora 'Aureomarginata'

Helleborus x ballardiae 'HCG Cinnamon Snow'

And the "good god, you're STILL blooming?" award goes to Mahonia x media 'Arthur Menzies,' which has been blooming since October.

Mahonia x media 'Arthur Menzies'

I'm getting excited for things to really start firing up next month. Thanks, as always, to our hostess Carol at May Dreams Gardens.

Thursday, February 4, 2016

Fire!

Back in 2010 I had the fireplaces professionally cleaned specifically so I could light a fire for Thanksgiving. We have two fireplaces: one upstairs in the living room and one in the finished portion of the basement. They have separate smoke chambers that run side by side in the same chimney.

Our basement room started filling with smoke shortly after I lit a fire in the living room fireplace. Either the deformed damper that was permanently stuck in the open position downstairs was sucking in smoke from the upstairs chimney OR we had a crack or break in the brick/mortar between the two smoke chambers. Regardless, we never used our fireplaces again because I couldn't afford that kind of work at the time.

We decided to splurge and have gas inserts installed in the fireplaces, which would bypass the need to replace the dampers or deal with cracks between the two smoke chambers. I got three bids and ultimately decided to go with All Fuel. I felt like they really took everything into consideration, including how to deal with the curved front of the fireplace downstairs.


In order to comply with code, we had to install a hearth in the basement. We used Neilson Construction and I couldn't be more pleased with the job they did.

Just for fun, let's look again at what the fireplace looked like when I moved in.


The previous owner had installed a hearth, poorly and incorrectly, and it broke up when I accidentally hit it with a floor scraper. Hall and Oates were sort of blocking the cold air that came in because the damper was deformed and stuck in the open position.

I don't even know, guys.



The flooring was cut away to accommodate the new tile. You might be asking why we went with a hearth that's wider than the fireplace. When we installed the laminate flooring we couldn't get the flooring flush with the curved, irregular bricks of the fireplace, which left a 3/4" gap on the sides. It was too irregular to use something like quarter round (and that would've looked dumb, anyway), so I decided to have the guy tile around it. I wish I had a picture of the gap but I somehow missed that spot in the 1.4 billion photos I've taken of this house.

I also went looking on Houzz and it turns out an extra-large hearth isn't all that abnormal. Yay! This would've been a fun time to install some funky tile but I really just wanted this hearth to look like it had always been there. We found tile that exactly matched the 6" x 6" tile upstairs and went with that.

Original upstairs fireplace tile
New downstairs fireplace tile! It's just missing the transition strip.

Tom, the tile installer, hand cut all the tiles to fit around the clinker bricks. I swear I almost wept when I saw what a meticulous job he did. I want to retile our bathroom NOW before he retires. He seriously rocked this job.



All Fuel took the wood piece we had covering the firebox and had a metal fabricator create a perfect match. They had to grind away some of the brick edges to get everything to sit flush. They told me that this was one of the most challenging installs they'd ever completed.

And here we are now.



Before:



And after:

Next project: get a mantel built

Now, to the living room! Upstairs we were missing a tile.


The tile is all original to the house and it's unlikely we'd be able to find a match. We opted to pick out new tile that looked almost identical, then had them chip out the old. They left the granite corner pieces, which are still in fine condition.


Like it was always there


Now I just need to stain the hearth grout (they informed me that it was originally charcoal colored and has bleached out over the years) and we should be good to go.

I want to reiterate how great All Fuel was to work with. We had to wait about three weeks to get a bid from them and wait a little longer for install, because they are in such high demand. Their bid was $2000 less than Jacobs and they covered all the little things that make these projects better. They wear booties in your house so they don't gunk up your floors. They put down drop cloths. They are very communicative about what they're doing, when. They are unfailingly nice and very clean. Someone picks up the phone right away when you call. The install takes three days total and this was probably the least stressful project I've ever endured (for the record, insulation was the most stressful).

Likewise, Tom at Neilson Construction was fantastic. There were several times when I asked for things (extra cuts! more tile!) that created more work for him and he cheerfully gave me exactly what I wanted. He was so easy to work with.

If you need me, I plan to be camped out right here for the next few months.


Friday, January 15, 2016

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day January 2016

Happy new year! I've been pretty content that it's winter. I know a lot of people hate winter and I know the weather sucks, but do you know about butter and parmesan? Cooking rich, satisfying food and watching a lot of TV? Hot toddies and snowshoeing? Going for long walks when it's very cold and feeling very virtuous? I don't think winter is so bad, especially since it's so mild here.

The other day I ran across some photos of my garden in April and I got excited to garden and now I'm actually looking forward to spring. It's still a ways off, so I'll be over here with my bowl of ragù and my Netflix. It's not so bad.

My mahonias are still going, which means we have lots of hummingbirds.

Mahonia x 'Charity'

 This witch hazel smells so good I feel like my neighbors should be thanking me.

Hamamelis I. 'Early Bright'

This silly self-seeded Calendula

And the award for bloomiest year-round performer goes to Othonna cheirifolia. Even under snow it was blooming.

Othonna cheirifolia

Happy bloom day! Thanks to our host Carol, over at May Dreams Gardens.

Tuesday, December 15, 2015

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day December 2015

The Meiji shinto shrine in Tokyo

At the end of October Greg and I flew to Japan for our honeymoon. We had one full perfect day in Tokyo under our belts when I got a call that my brother had passed away unexpectedly in his sleep. He was 42 and an exceptionally good human being. We are completely devastated by the loss of him. I think almost everyone knows this already (and you've all been so nice, thank you for that) but I'm posting it here for those last far-flung friends of mine who don't have a Facebook account. (Which is so annoying, guys. Everyone is on there; please get an account already.) In-person social interactions are exhausting and I can't handle talking on the phone, so I find myself very grateful for social media, which has allowed me to interact with the living without getting out of sweatpants or this fort I've made from used kleenex.

I am also grateful for my mahonias, which are bright, cheery beacons in the winter.

Mahonia x media 'Arthur Menzies'

Mahonia x media 'Charity', which bloomed for the first time!


And this clematis, which I put in the ground in July, forgot to water, and thought I killed. It defied me by blooming through a hard frost and some of the heaviest rain we've had in ten years. Thank you Xera, for growing bullet-proof plants. This one is evergreen, turns bronze in the winter, and blooms November through February. I planted it outside my kitchen window where I can appreciate the hummingbirds covering it.

Clematis cirrhosa 'Wisley Cream'

Thank you to our host Carol at May Dreams Gardens. We really can have flowers almost any month of the year.