12.13.08 and 12.14.08

It’s time to get rid of the blasted crepe myrtles. My neighborhood helpers “Bob” and “Dodger” helped me dispatch the big one in the yard once I figured out it was just too big to dig up. They did a pretty good job, all things considered. No fingers were lost, and no one got hit by a falling branch, so I consider it a success. That's a story for another day!

But this little one by the garage – I’m loathe to just cut it down. It just might be small enough to dig up and transplant to Ed’s house, so we’re going to give it a shot. Ed and I attacked that one this weekend. We fought and dug and cussed at the tree and at the chainsaw. We abused the loppers (god bless Fiskars), dulled the hatchet, and gave the pick axes a good workout. And we finally got the blasted thing dug up. We toppled it into the driveway and Ed went off to go rent a truck to haul it with. I hosed off as much soil from the root ball as I could, and trimmed it up just a bit. Once the soil was removed, it was super light. It took nothing to throw it into the truck. I think we did all of this on Saturday.

"stock photo"...hehehe

When he had the truck, Ed picked up some soil and such from the hardware store and got his site prepped for the tree. In the meantime, I took the chainsaw to the stump of the other crepe myrtle and tried to whittle it away. I only got so far before I needed a new chain. By then, I had had enough for the day so I cleaned things up and packed it in.

The next day, I headed off to Ed’s place to help plant the tree. He had already done the hardest work. The whole was dug and he had a bunch of soil and substrates laid out on a tarp. We just cut the bags open, mixed the stuff up, and poured a good little pile into the hole. I convinced Ed to trim the top of the tree within an inch of its life, hopefully encouraging it to focus more energy on establishing roots than on growing more leaves just yet. It also helped with drag from the breeze, which threatened to pull the tree out of the ground before we gave it a hair cut. Once we had the tree sitting nicely on the mound of good soil we had mixed, we worked on filling in around the tree, being very careful to work soil back into the pockets around the roots as much as we possibly could. We would pack in some soil, then flood the hole and let it drain. Later, rinse, repeat until it was solidly planted. I think we did a really nice job. I’m pretty sure it’ll even wake up and grow this spring. Yay!!

...mixin' soil...plantin' the tree...waterin' it in...

...happy tree!! yay!!

11.27.08 - 11.30.08

Thanksgiving holiday weekend….

As the holidays approach, I anticipate a slowing of progress. It’s understandable and totally expected, but still a little hard to deal with. But if I were to try to still go full-bore with all of my plans AND enjoy all of my family and friends and travel and holiday-gluttony, I would make myself crazy. So I’m prepared. Sort of.

The ThanksGiving weekend was wonderful. It was a long one, spent in the cozy warmth of my in-laws’ home in Abilene. We brought all 3 of our pups with us, and Jan and Dan have a little moppet of a Maltese named Kinsey. None of the dogs knew quite what to think of each other. Kinsey is still mostly a puppy, and I think is a little taller than Margo, but not as thick. Nola was still warming up to her new family, and this little spark plug just pretty much blew her mind. Violet figured out fast that she couldn’t eat the little white fuzzball and completely lost interest afterward.

Between watching football and visiting and eating and napping, I finally drew up the first actual plans for the yard. I had all of the measurements and some graph paper and some map pencils and all that good stuff. The drawing got tweaked a bit as things progressed, but provided a very strong foundation for my future efforts. I kept meaning to do another version of it, colored in and looking like something straight out of a professional landscaping company’s bid process, but have yet to get around to it. I can either be inside drawing and coloring, or outside making things happen. I’m pretty sure you know by now which I prefer…

Here it be…

The yard is pretty rectangular, so there are no odd angles to deal with. Once it’s bisected by the door-to-sidewalk walkway, the driveway-side is a few feet shorter than the other side. I decided to really make the most of the rectangular shape, and plotted three 4’ x 8’ areas on each side of the walkway. On the driveway-side of the yard, the two 4’ x 8’ areas closest to the street will be for planting. The one closest to the house will be for composting. I will also be planting blueberries along the fence line on the driveway-side of the lawn. Cross the walkway and you’ll find the same arrangement of 4’ x 8’ areas, but all 3 will be for planting. Because this side of the yard is the wider side, I will also fit in 3 fruiting trees. I’m thinking I’ll try a meyer lemon, a lime, and a Satsuma. To mirror the blueberries, I will be planting Brazos and Kiowa blackberries against the fenceline on this side.

I’ve left 3’ paths between each of the beds. I’ll eventually lay 2’ of pavers in the middle of each of these paths, leaving 6” on each side for ground cover plantings to soften the edges of the boxes. The weed cloth under the boxes should help keep the ground cover from creeping up into the boxes. I’ll make quick work of any interlopers.

The walkway is going to be one of my very favorite parts. I’m not sure I’m going to tell about it just yet. I think I’ll wait. It’s too cool, and frankly, I want to get it installed before I share the idea!