The Variegated Thumb

My blogging hiatus continues due to all of my free time going towards our house addition.  The addition was bricked a couple of weeks ago and it turns out that I ordered entirely too much brick.  Apparently that is difficult to do, so I have a hidden talent.  If you ever need someone to over estimate the number of bricks you need for a project, give me a call!  Anyway, I had our brick layer come back this week and use some of the extra bricks, to brick the greenhouse.  Check it out:

BEFORE

The above picture was taken just after finishing the greenhouse, in that brief moment before all the plants went running inside.

AFTER

Pretty nice, huh?  It’s just a little sad to see my nice cinder blocks covered up.  But now the greenhouse perfectly matches the house and looks a little more official.

And here’s a photo of our addition, all finished on the outside.  It’s getting close to being finished on the inside, as well.

Finished exterior of our house addition. Those papers on the door glass are *some* of the inspection slips.

For the last couple of years we have had a couple of non-hardy plants growing on trellises that we transport back and forth from the greenhouse to the back fence with the changing seasons.  This way we can enjoy some near-tropical climbing and flowering plants in the yard during the summer and keep them alive over the winter.  I mounted brackets on the back fence for reattaching the trellises each year and I have Christie help me move the potted plant, attached to the trellis back and forth.

One of our purchased trellises. Notice the Passiflora bloom. More on that later...

This year I had another plant (or two) that I wanted to add to the shuffle, but I was out of trellises.  I knew that I could buy another trellis to match the ones I have, but it would require a trip to Oklahoma City and also would cost a bit of moolah.  And we had some wood lying around…

Veritable smorgasbord of unknown projects

So I decided to just make my own trellis.  It’s a pretty simple contraption and it didn’t even need to be an exact match to look legit.  After previous unpleasant incidents with the circular saw, I had Christie on hand to help me hold the wood while I was cutting these slivers of wood.  It helps to have a supervisor nearby who reminds you not to do stupid things – like getting your fingers in the way of whirring blades that don’t notice the difference in wood and finger.

My new trellis, crafted by moi.

About fifteen minutes of work and we had a new trellis mounted on the back fence with my Flame Vine (Pyrostegia venusta) planted at the base.  (and I still had all my fingers!)

The last time I showed you the brick garden path, it looked like this:

Brick path back in mid-March

Here are some updates, now that the sod has been laid and plants are established.  Right around the brick path and along our back porch, we laid fescue sod, which is doing really well.  We also seeded in the area surrounding that and our grass seedlings are starting to blend in with the sod so the harsh corners of the grassy area are now rounded off and extended to a broader area.

Completed brick path and garden around the greenhouse

In the garden between the brick path and the greenhouse we have planted Blue Star Junipers (Juniperus squamata ‘Blue Star’), Gauras (Oenothera), Pieris (Pieris japonica ‘Valley Rose’) and mouse tail plants (Arisarum).  You can also see in the picture above that I have pulled out many of my plants from the greenhouse, my potting bench is in getting use and there are pots all over the place.

Blue star juniper (Juniperus squamata 'Blue Star')

The Forsythia is all green now, with the yellow blooms of Spring gone.  But the Gauras (Oenothera) have established themselves well and are covered  in really nice pink blooms.

Gaura (Oenothera), Juniper (Juniperus squamata 'Blue Star') and Forsythia

Opposite the Forsythia bush is a variegated Chinese Privet (Ligustrum sinense ‘Variegata’), which I think really helps carry the feel of the garden around the corner with the brick path.  The Privet is in the olive family, Oleaceae.

Privet bush (Ligustrum sinense 'Variegata'), which helps your eye round the corner

The Privet has been blooming, although you wouldn’t know it unless you were looking at it as closely as I have been.  The flowers (pictured below) are tiny and have a sweet fragrance if you get your nose right up on them.

Extreme close-up of the Privet bush (Ligustrum sinense 'Variegata') blooms

I’m not quite sure what sparked this project, but on Friday evening when I got home from dinner I was feeling creative, so I made good use of some sticks in our yard.

My homemade orchid basket

First I broke sticks by hand into similar lengths. Then I used a pair of pliers to snip the ends so they were a little more regular. I searched the garage for a while until I came across an old roll of wire. This was perfect because the wire was rusted and blended in with the wood even better – one of the advantages of living in an old family house!  After just about 30 minutes of work I had made a hanging basket for an orchid.

Edge of the orchid basket, where you can see the wiring a little better.

I think it turned out pretty nice for my first one and that I’ll make some more soon.  The orchid that’s in the basket in the picture above is Stanhopea wardii.  Stanhopeas are ideal for hanging baskets because they produce blooms that hang below the plants.  Other orchids actually produce their bloom stems from the roots, hanging down, which makes the open slats in the basket perfect (assuming the plant is directly in the basket, without a pot).  I really only have one or two orchids that require (or appreciate) a hanging basket like this but we have a lot of limbs and sticks in the backyard and I would like to hone my skills.  I think I can make the next one sturdier than the first model.  Maybe someone in the orchid society will want one…

Over the last couple weeks I put in about 10 hours of work to build a little path from our back patio around the greenhouse to the gate on the side of the house.  The work mostly consisted of digging out the area for the bricks, dumping the dirt in various low areas of our yard, cleaning the bricks of mortar (since these are repurposed bricks) and then the fun part: laying the bricks.

Our new brick path, wrapping around the greenhouse.

I think the project turned out really nice.  This area is very shady as soon as our huge Sycamore tree leafs out, so the grass has been gone for years.  This path was laid just before the Spring rains come, so we’ll be able to walk around the house without trudging into mud.

Our new brick path, leading to the side gate.

Building this path also gave us the opportunity to use some of our gardening budget and spiff up this part of our yard.  We purchased some little Pieris bushes (Pieris japonica ‘Valley Rose’) from Lowe’s that have the 1 year warranty.  That way if they aren’t able to handle the heat of our Oklahoma Summers, we can get our money back.  Lowe’s often offers some things that I haven’t seen before and I have to be a little skeptical.  Either they haven’t been tested in our climate or they have and they’re not going to make it.  I am kind of familiar with the name Pieris, though, and have read enough online now that I am fairly confident that these plants will be happy here.

Pieris japonica 'Valley Rose' and decorative hedgehog

The Pieris bushes have really nice, dusty rose colored blooms that droop like a fountain of little bells.  When the blooms have finished the foliage is still interesting, having a shape similar to a Schefflera.

I have wanted a Forsythia for a while, seeing them light up every Spring, and I know that it will do well in our climate.  Like our Quince, it won’t require any special care and should establish itself well in this location.  Also, I know that the Blue Star Junipers will do well in our climate.  We have some nice Green Mound Junipers in our front yard around the waterfall that look great.  They have slowly spread over time and just look better every year.

Forsythia and Blue Star Juniper

We would like to lay some shade grass sod around our path and in the most barren part of our yard near our porch now.  It will look much nicer and keep our house cleaner from the pups’ trips in and out this Spring.