Spring is here and the flowers are blooming! Awesome! …and so are the weeds. Ugh.
Author Archives: kristi
About kristi
They both start with D
You may recall that I was mildly obsessed over a deck last summer. Well midsummer I changed my mind and thought what we really needed was a revamped kitchen. (This was also about the time that I stopped blogging last summer because I had A PROJECT.) I talked with my friend who has excellent taste, painted the kitchen, gave away our kitchen table because it was too big for the space, and even requested an estimate from an awesome interior design firm. Then I realized what we really needed was a new backdoor.
Our door was super cheap and half rotted near the bottom. During the winter, the cold air would constantly rush in and the glass would be completely fogged over– zero energy efficiency. So we bought a new backdoor. Of course since our house was built in the 1930s the doorway not a standard size so we had to purchase a custom door. (We also redid the basement windows because well one had been cracked for like eight years.) The first installation attempt they forgot that our door swings out so they had to rebuild the door and reinstall it two months later. It was annoying but they did take a large chunk off of the price so that made my husband very happy.
Now that we have the door, I really want a deck.
Brings me right back
The scent of Honeysuckle brings me right back to childhood. I don’t even know where this came from. In our nine years here I’ve never seen it. I’m convinced my husband has been cutting it down each year.
Not everything is pink
Blueflag irises (Iris versicolor) are pretty. I bought two plugs last year at the native plant sale and bought about six more this year. Since most of my flowers are pink it’s really nice to have something different.
Native plant sale 2014
I volunteered at our elementary school’s native plant sale last weekend. The bad news is I accidentally sold someone something that I thought was a blackberry bush. It wasn’t. The good news is that I bought the following:
Penstemon digitalis — tall white bearded tongue
Liatris spicata — dense blazing star
Hibiscus moscheutos — rose mallow
Aster novae-angliae — New England aster
Iris versicolor — Blueflag (I actually bought some of these last year and they’ve done really well–those are the ones in bloom. I decided to fill in with several more near the front corner of the house, around the hibiscus militaris.)
Matteuccia struthiopteris –ostrich fern
Virginia rose (I thought I bought one of these last year but it was a swamp rose (rose palustris). I bought two and planted them near the swamp rose but I’m thinking I might move them to an even shadier spot. )
I highly recommend a native plant sale as a school fundraiser. Great way to meet people in the neighborhood and beautify your neighbors’ yard.
Back to that deck idea
You may remember that we considered adding a deck a couple of years ago. Look, I really want a pool in the backyard but that ain’t happening. So we’re gonna build a deck instead. I mean, we’re going to pay someone to build a deck. It will be a fairly basic rectangle that surrounds the basement steps with steps toward the driveway.
I am a little worried about what we’ll do with the corner between the deck and the side-porch. I have some ideas but I’m not sure how feasible they really are. Yep, there’s a pool or two in there. A girl can dream. Whatever we do, it will have to incorporate or cover up the concrete sand box.
What you missed
Thought I’d take a few minutes and show you what’s already bloomed. You’ll notice a few weeds and leaves. Shut up.
my yard hates me... 