My Fantasy Landscape

Amazing.
Located in Palo Alto, CA
more photos available at landscape architect's website...
http://www.bernardtrainor.com/

Featured in Garden Design - March 2009 issue

lesson learned

It's my two year anniversary from the "porcelain flower pot from Ikea breaks in my arms and slices 3 tendons" incident.

I live in the Midwest. My Ikea flowers pots went thru a rainy Spring, a hot dry Summer, a wet Fall, and even got a dusting of snow before I finally brought them in for the Winter. Of course by the following Spring they were about to fall apart. And sure enough one did as I was carrying it out to the trash. Now I'm officially done with anything porcelain outside. No more cute Ikea pots for me.

That said, this is still my favorite weekend of the year. The excitement of going to 3 or 4 garden centers...buying lots of new cool flowers and plants...bringing out all of the patio furniture. This weekend means summer is officially here! Bust out those white pants!!

neglect

I have been too busy to linger around on the internet reading all my fave blogs and looking for ideas to steal and inspiration. ugh. Well I let myself have a half an hour this morning to poke around and see what's going on in my virtual world...








must...get...inspired...

style and function

new bird feeder.

overwhelmed

I'm not sure what happened to the month of May. We are so far behind on the basement remodel. Now we have our hands full putting the backyard back together. And two people working one day a week on these projects just ain't cutting it. New target date for the basement to be finished is October.

It was 90 degrees yesterday and it will be that again today. Our air conditioner is still unhooked from when the concrete patio was removed. It's like a sauna in the house.

And it's bunny season. This year our yard is so torn up that a few bunny holes won't even be noticed. Dig away!

trenches for better drainage

The Barreto Power Trencher. I like how they have a graphic on it of a man getting his leg cut off - awesome!





This is the last step of our basement waterproofing effort. I'm 99.9% sure that we have put an end to the basement seepage problem. Mark spent a day and a half using the power trencher and installing PVC pipe underground to send any water flowing from our gutter downspouts much farther away from the house. Next will be the truckloads of sand, dirt, and pea gravel that will make for an exciting weekend of shovelling. I can hardly wait.

old cracked patio be gone

BEFORE (in all of its cracked and ugly glory)...



DURING REMOVAL...



AFTER (and after an inch of rain)...

basement remodel: frame up begins

The Mark and Beth Construction Company is a slow machine!
After all the horrible distractions that was the month of April, we are back on track with the basement remodel. Mark and I spent Saturday framing up some walls and it feels pretty good to be working down there again. We still need to get the old concrete patio and some sidewalks along the back of the house busted out so we can really have a piece of mind that our basement is completely leak proof. We met with the contractor putting in our next door neighnors' patio yesterday (Dino with Sylvio Giannini Cement Work...wait is this an episode of the Sopranos that I never saw??) and it looks like Dino and his crew will be knocking ours out this week. Once that happens, we can dig down to where the sump pump ejects under ground and make sure the pipe is not cracked. We are going to have a bunk patio area for a while but hopefully not for too long.
My back hurts and I think it's time to call it a night!

new growth: hens & chicks

(bonus... these are hens & chicks & robins)


All of the hens & chicks that I planted last year (and even the year before that) are coming back strong. I'm pleased with how big some of them are already this early in the season. I'm so glad I planted more out front last month - I love them!

tumblr

http://housepet.tumblr.com/
I just started posting my bird photos of the day at tumblr. I posted some previous pics I had taken within the last couple of months to figure out how tumblr works. My first official bird photo of the day is today's post. I hope to keep it up every day this year. It shouldn't be hard as I sit outside every morning with my coffee and a camera.