Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

I know it's only Saturday, I figured I'd start early!

We put three of the potted ornamental grass (Variegated Miscanthus) in the ground today. It took three hours! I'm always amazed how much longer this stuff takes than I anticipate.

We dug the hole 2-3x as wide as the pot and I mixed in some compost underneath the root ball and around the sides to give it a boost. I hope that gives the roots a great start and that it will grow to 5-6 feet. Right now it's about 3-4 feet high. I'll post pics later.

Tomorrow, if I'm able to walk I want to plant the other four shrubs on the fence line.

Your turn!

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

we just came in to take a lunch break

so far we
went to home depot to get supplies
did a final yard clean up
DH mulched the front beds
DH is finishing the bluestone walkway
DS & I are cleaning the deck & furniture
We are washing the house

still need to mow & weed wack
buy some plants & plant them
move around some stuff in the yard
set up all of the furniture for our BBQ on monday
mulch the pond area
and about one thousand other things DH has on his list but I doubt they'll all get done

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

This is our first spring/summer in the house (in a condo previously with minimal gardening). After hitting Lowe's for the necessary supplies, I planted 144 impatients and 2 black eyed susans. I also seeded where the fish pond used to be and in a few spots in the front. I also fertilized and watered the heck out of everything.

I know I am going to be hurting tomorrow .

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

So far:
I cleaned off my porch
Potted some annuals in my planters
Bought a hydrangea and planted it
Bought butterfly bushes and planted them
Bought 4 lavender plants that need planting
Bought 4 more perennials that I planted two of
Removed all the dead heads from my existing plants
weeded

I still have a ton to do outside. I'm never happy with it!

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

Friday I planted at my mother in laws - tomorrow I am buying mulch and putting it down in all my beds...and finishing plating the rest of my flowers

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

Made my refigerator ice maker work- it was leaking when we first got the fridge so we just turned it off

Planted petunias on my front balcony (I live in a condo). also bought a container tomato, mint and basil to go in little pots on the balcony.

Want to get deck plant hangers and some impatients for my back deck.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

OMG, DH and I finally finished mom's yard we had no idea how much jungle was in the back yard (right against the home's foundation )

well, it's all done... the perimeter of the house is tidy, and the plants are planted.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

oh! I like this! DH power washed a bunch of the outside, esp the stoop which had turned green last year (maybe the year before, actually) and now we're amazed at how pretty it is. We borrowed a friend's power washer, so we're going a bit nuts with that this week.

I planted a couple dozen plants in our sad empty, previously weed infested garden areas. Hoping for lots of bloom this summer.

Also cleaned the kitchen (I work almost all the time that I'm awake and trying to get more of a balance in my life) in the meantime the house has really suffered.... Trying to get the house organized - one room at a time :)

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

No one has pics?

I forgot to say that we mowed and edged yesterday too and weeded.

Today I'm going to the nursery to get more compost, and planting my euonymus and spirea shrubs along the fence line. Those should be easier than yesterday because these 3 or 1 gallon pots as opposed to the 5 gallons yesterday. Also, they don't need huge planting holes.

If we have time before the rain arrives, maybe some of the smaller perennials I have will go in the ground too.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

I planted grass seed last weekend, so this weekend, I'm watching little tine grass shoots popping up...

I did most of the yard, so I really can't do a whole lot now without walking on the new seedlings.

Plus, yesterday was DD's 3rd b-day, so I have other things to focus on this weekend...

Once the grass is established, I have a ton of stuff to do....

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

we went to Cheap Sams yesterday and bought a gold thead juniper to replace the one from last year that didn't make it, 4 chicks and hens, a climbing white lace cap hydrangea, 2 red twig dogwoods and 2 butterfly bushes...

Then we came home and did some weeding and trimming.

Today we are going for flowers and then we will start planting!

Oh, and I actually have to go out to get a pooper scooper from all the geese poopy in our yard

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

We finished planting the privacy shrubs for the fence line today.





Even though the gaps are big, they are all fast growers. The spirea in particular can spread 10 to 12 feet.

I will fill in any gaps for privacy's sake on the inside of the fence. That reminds me, one more from the inside corner:



As you can see, I need that one to give us privacy from the neighbor's driveway.

Tomorrow I start working on the perennial flowers, those should be easier since the pots are much smaller.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

The privacy shrubs look excellent.

Yesterday, I pulled up some weeds, (A weekly ritual), then planted more of my Strawberry flowers in my walkway, and then watered.

I am debating against doing the black mulch in some of my beds.

Last Year I did the rubber Mulch in the beds near my house and did the regular mulch in the rest of the beds, but this year when planting in the walkway, I get to scoop up a lot of the mulch, so It was a waste to buy.

The bed I want to put it in is all perennials....so I wont have to replant there next year...

Scott

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

We opened the pool.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

We FINALLY got rid of all the bricks in our yard. There used to be a pool which had a brick patio. The pool was filled years before, but we found the remaining bricks behind the shed

We also tore down a small shed that was attached to the garage and built a retaining wall/raised garden bed around the back of the garage where DH's workshop is. It takes forever to get them level, so we did the first row yesterday, I'll post pics tomorrow!

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

yesterday we bought flowers and I busted my azz planting them all day

Dahlias in big wooden pots, marigolds in the front garden, petunias around our light pole, and today I will finish the sun coleus baskets for the patio, trailing vine baskets for the pole, and the bugleweed for the shade garden....

whew!

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

DH spackled and painted the ceiling since he took down 1/2 of a wall a few weeks ago. He hung a new light fixture in the dining room. He's putting a new floor down in the kitchen, and I painted moulding :)

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

I planted my "flower circle" smack dab in the middle of our yard. There used to be a tree there and we've done nothing with it since it was taken down except mulch it.

I planted:

1 Blue Lacecap Hydrangea
1 Snowmound Spirea
3 Black Eyed Susans
3 Russian Sage

I plan on putting the 3 Artemisia Silver Mound there too. I got spooked by what I've been reading about it and decided not to put it straight in the ground. Instead, I repotted them into pots 2x the size of what they were in. At some point this week I'm going to dig holes and put them, pots and all, in the ground.

I was out there for about five hours. During which I saw a really cool yellow dragonfly and a white butterfly landed right in front of me on the Russian Sage. I just sat there, a foot away from it, and watched for a while. So many of the flowers I've chosen are bird, bee and butterfly friendly.

I was moving the last of the Artemisia pots to a more shady location when I felt something crawling on my thumb. I looked down in time to see something yellow and then BAM I got stung. I dropped the pot and the plant and dirt spread all over the driveway.

Pretty sure that was my first bee sting in 36 years. I guess I'm not allergic, I still have feeling in my thumb and I'm not having trouble breathing or anything. I have to say though, that wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

When it gets later and cooler, I'm going to go out and soak them down with some water and then take pics.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

Built a workbench for my basement. Just 2x4s and 4x4 legs, but it's very sturdy, and I finally have a place to work. Now I can work on building the bookcases for my library.

I'm also repairing my couch. It's a great couch, but they didn't build it too strong. The back supports were nailed together with thin nails, so if you sat back, the supports would snap the nails. It is much stronger now, and should only break if we abuse it way beyond what any couch should be expected to take. Now I just have to close up the back and make it look like I was never in there.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

oh, and today, we completed the final details in mom's yard...set up the soaker hoses! (she's a lazy waterer... we needed to make it super easy)

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

We just got the house in early may so this past week I worked all week trying to find my backyard. I hacked my way through vines and old stumps. I gave a few bushes haircuts and shaped them in normal size bushes.

I planted a veggie garden. Along my left fence I got rid of all the vines and dead roots and planted hydrangea, columbines, and some annuals. It looks really pretty and so much cleaner.

This weekend, DH trimmed up our Pine Tree. It is huge (towers over our house) and the branches were to the ground and across our front lawn.

Here is a before pic (tree on the right) - DH trimmed about 12' high so you see the trunk and you can now actually see to the house. I have afters on my cell phone but I cannot figure out how to transfer them :(


He also removed a small pine tree whose top 4' of branches were sitting on our back patio roof, removed an overgrown bush that blocked access to our pool steps and removed all the small trees and bushes that were behind the big pine tree in the front of the house.

There is still a ton more to do, but it looks a lot better. We have some really nice bushes and trees in the back (rhododondroms, dogwoods, holly, pear trees, and some others I cannot name) so I am slowly cutting through the vines and overgrowth and hope to one day have a nice garden. We have ivy across the back of our yard, it has choked 4 trees already - I have yet to read a 'cure' to get rid of it. It seems like an impossible feat. Maybe in 5 years, LOL.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

I weeded all flower beds (2 in front, 3 in back) and dropped about 30 bags of top soil (with some help!)

I then planted about 4 flats (impatiens, salvia, dusty miller)in the front and back.

Still need some more top soil and need to mulch a large bed of shrubs. I feel like it never ends!

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

What didn't we do, that should be the question! lol

Message edited 5/26/2009 8:24:58 AM.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

All we did this weekend was on Saturday only.

- Shopped for laminate Flooring at Lumber Liquadators.
- Bought lumber timbers for one of our backyard garden beds.
- Bought more grass seed, top soil & peat moss.

Yup that is it for us this weekend. We decided that we always do work around the house and it was our weekend to relax. So we went to two BBQ's and Jones Beach for the Air Show. So it was a pretty relaxing weekend.

ETA: Greenfreak - love all the new plants. Post pics of the front yard circle of flowers too. Would love to see how that turned out. And everyone really did a lot of work this weekend. I'm tired just reading what you all did.

Message edited 5/26/2009 9:47:26 AM.

Re: Ok, what house and yard stuff did we all do this weekend?

I'm tired reading this stuff too! I guess we all go at our own paces. I'm comfortable with what we accomplished.