After the huge rush of comments that I received from my last blog post
I thought I may as well strike with another post while the iron is
hot.
Erin and I have been busy lately with doing work around
the house. This coming weekend we are going to be hosting a Steelers
Party for Erin's family so all of her Aunts and Uncles will get a
chance to see the place. So this past weekend we started getting the
house ready. We finished the retaining wall project by planting and
mulching the bed that was there. We also cleaned up some of the other
beds that we have by edging them, removing some unsightly plants, and
mulching them as well. There is still a lot of work to be done but it
is a thousand times better then what it used to be.
In the new bed we planted some grasses to cover up a vent pipe that was pretty unsightly. We also got three dwarf nandina
plants. We had a full sized nandina at our last house and loved it.
So Erin and I are excited to have the three new nandinas. The focal
point of the bed is a Fernleaf Buckthorn.
They can get fairly large, especially for the size area it is planted
in, but they respond very well to pruning so we should be able to keep
it looking nice. I love how the bed turned out. We have to thank Tony
from Ianetti's Garden Center
for helping us find some unique things to plant. We would have never
picked out the Fernleaf Buckthorn on our own but we love it. I hope to
get some pictures on my flickr page soon so you can see the finished
bed.
We also got a Red Sunset Maple
from Ianetti's and planted it in the back yard. The tree was delivered
on September 22 and Ken was over to help me dig the hole to pant it. I
returned the favor by fixing his computer for him. Our tree doesn't
look nearly as nice as the one in the picture but I hope that it will
in a few years. None of the trees this fall look good. Since it has
been so warm and fairly dry the leaves on all of the trees are going
straight from green to brown and I think it will be a very
disappointing fall.
One last thing to say about our outdoor
upgrades. We had the pleasure of experiencing what it takes to try and
get rid of a yucca plant. We had a yucca plant in one of our beds and
I dug it out about 6 weeks ago when we started on the whole retaining
wall project. Luckily this yucca plant was not in the bed with the
retaining wall. Anyway. Before we mulched the beds we noticed that
some yucca was coming back up through the dirt. I started to dig this
darn thing up determined to get all of the root this time. When it was
all said and done Erin and I must dug a hole about 2.5 to 3 foot deep
and about 4 feet in diameter. This was ridiculous! We found a shoot
coming up through the ground from a piece of root that was about the
size of my thumbnail. I hope we got all of the roots this time so it
doesn't start coming back up. We have serveral more places where yucca
was planted and one of those places is right where our electric, phone,
and cable utilities come into the house. I dont know what we are going
to do there to get rid of it. If you have not yet figured this out by
my rant, let me spell it out for you. Do not ever, ever, ever consider
planting yucca anywhere ever. Period. This plant is such a pain in
the ass it is not funny.
Not that I am down with my ranting about the outside of the house let me talk about the progress on the inside.
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Yes,
those are crickets you are still hearing while I have my window fully
open and the ceiling fan going full blast. Anyway Erin and I have not
gotten anywhere close to where we want to be with the inside of the
house. We were hoping to go through the final boxes and get things put
away before her family comes over this weekend. We will really need to
work hard the next few days to get it all done. I am looking at the
office right now and it is an absolute disaster area. I think we will
start tackling this tomorrow in hopes that we make some progress before
Sunday.
That is all for the moment. Now that I know that I have an audience I may start writing more....but don't hold your breath.
