What the eff? Pt. 2

On the other side of the Apricot tree from the Amaryllis (thanks, guys!) is more dirt. Mostly shaded, but occasionally it gets some sun. Imagine my surprise when there was a lone spot of purple amidst the dirt (and renegade ivy.)

Some kind of purple trumpet flower. It's pretty, but completely rogue.

Close up:

So odd.

We've also got...um...walnuts?

Tree:


Fruit:


Fallen Fruit:


Nut?


Ok. So this is what it looked like after Husband had rinsed most of the rotten fruit off of it. We couldn't get it open, so I tried cracking it with a big ol' nail and out hammer. It's mocking me. We gave up.

If it helps, the nut smells burned, like smokey ash.

I would say that we'll just leave these for the raccoons for now, but they don't even seem to want them. Maybe it's not edible, after all?

What the eff?

Back in the spring, while I was lying in bed wondering if my guts were going to remain inside my body, my wonderful husband decided to help out with my vision of a pumpkin patch. I had it all planned. The neighborhood kids would come and pick their own pumpkins...there would be pie and breads and decoration and seeds...it would be delightful.

This was all the growth we got:

And honestly, we're not even 100% sure that is a pumpkin plant I took a picture of. All I know is that it sprouted in the mound that husband filled with seeds.

Could be we planted too late. Could be the neighborhood cats did a number on it with all of their digging around. Could be the fact that we haven't seen a drop of rain since March is keeping it a dried up dirty wasteland... OR - all of the stupid ivy that was there before sucked all of the nutrients out of the soil. It does look rather dust-bowlish back there.

Which is why today, when I went to drop melon rinds in our slow compost pile, I was shocked to notice something:

On the left is the compost pile - thoughtfully created with a concrete barrier. In the foreground - debris that needs to be chucked. And a random succulent. Mostly what we notice is the big dust-bowl-like dirt wasteland in the center there...where a thriving pumpkin patch *should* be.

But do you see what I see?

No?

This:


Yeah. I didn't plant that. Nor have I bothered to water that patch of dirt since July. I keep hoping we'll turn the compost and find some great soil and then when (if) it (ever) cools down here we'll till it in and re-plant the patch. I'm not giving up.

And yet...pink flower:

I can't identify it. I know it was not there when the place was ivy-ridden. But there it is. A little pink-petaled stem of hope that maybe my thumb isn't entirely black after all. Maybe what my plants need is a little *more* neglect...?

PS - any tips on that pumpkin patch are welcome. Thanks!

PPS - My sister says they're lilies.
PPPS - other votes are for Amaryllis. I think that might be the win. Also - when Husband was digging the mounds for the pumpkin seeds he found a lot of old "onions" that were dead in the dirt. We now speculate that they were actually bulbs.

Now I need to learn to quilt

First it was the tie dress:























Now it's quilts made from old dress shirts with tie-inspired borders:
















found at My Spinning Wheel via Inchmark.

Instead, and because I don't own a sewing machine - YET - I'll be hanging some framed posters and folding laundry and trying to figure out why my favorite time to take pictures of flowers is during a misty rain...























What are you doing this weekend?

Bad Blogger

We had a little project this weekend and I was so worn out from it that it's taken me three days to get up the energy to write this blog.

Remember this?


One of my lovely readers (I have Fives of Tens of them, you know) suggested filling in with lava rock to discourage regrowth of what I now call the Ivy Scourge. Awesome idea, but Lava rock isn't free and guess what we had on hand already?

Brick. That's a pile of previously-applied brick in the corner back there. I didn't think to get a decent shot of the pile beforehand. Mostly because it had a metal washtub and a bunch of wood on top of the brick.

We also found brick here:

(we found a nest of garter snakes there, too)

and here:

Yeah. We dug those up. I've always wondered why our useless gardener uses the weed-whacker back here. At first I thought it was because of the randomly placed rosebushes, but now I know it's because once you remove a layer of overgrowth, you get equally randomly placed paths of brick.


Funny story about this area. See all that random, weedy growth behind the brick "Wall"? We started asking the Landlord to pull it out (since it's choking the fruit trees) when we moved in. In January. He came by last week and finally pulled out HALF OF IT. Not kidding:

(see that dirt half on the right? We have a useless gardener and a landlord who is perpetually half-assed about things. If it didn't hurt so much I'd bang my head against a wall.)

Now, I know that this whole "Gardening" thing is new to me (and exciting!) but even I know that the proper way to plant ivy (aside from Not Planting It At All) is NOT to put it in a planter and set it on the ground and forget about it. We unearthed, and then had to unearth, so many of these. Some salvageable, but mostly they'd been chewed to bits by the aggressive, invasive root system of The Scourge. I *hate* Ivy. And I don't hate a lot of things. But this is a plant that will grow INTO the stucco on the side of your house. It will choke out your fruit bearing plants. Its roots will ingest (I saw it) any little piece of whatever that they can't push out of the way.

After the apocalypse, it will be the cockroaches, spam, and Ivy.

Any, on more pleasant topics: the after pictures!


It's prettier from the front. And hey, we were working with salvaged brick. And also, I know that I need to prune that growth from the base of the pomegranate tree. That's technically the gardener's job. Unfortunately, he's a lazy bastard and the landlord is the one who hires/fires him...you see where my frustration lies.

Emily is about to take matters into her own tentacles....um, hands.

Birdies

Ok, I'm going to go back through my posts and add tags so that searching will be more efficient for those who are inclined to search.

This one will be tagged "outside" because it deals with exactly that: my outside.

I was sitting at my desk earlier, and since the temperature is over 60, we've got the windows open. I hear this odd little chirping sound and look over my shoulder to see this:

In this picture you will see my cat, Kipper (sleeping on my husband's synthesizer, which he so graciously set up for optimum lounging + bird watching cat goodness,), (I never know where to put the comma there) exploding Calla Lilies, a sad little rosebush, the post for the patio, a picnic table that's going to be stripped and repainted (yay before/afters!), and a blossoming Pomegranate tree.

What you will not see is the hummingbird that was tormenting Kipper by hovering on the other side of the screen, first partaking in a little pomegranate juice - because who doesn't love that? - and then just hovering around tweeting and tormenting.

It looked like this:


This is not my image. I'm not even remotely this skilled, nor do I have the patience, equipment or technical knowledge to get this awesome shot. This shot is from HERE, which also has a little audio clip of what the bird sounds like.

So, to review, we now know that Hummingbirds like the following:

Orange Blossoms

Lemon Blossoms

and

Pomegranate Blossoms

Which are so cool you get two shots of them.

I'm not sure about the apple, peach, pear, apricot, and whatever else it is we've got floating around because those aren't in my line of site, generally. But I'll keep an eye out.

New Tree!

I have no idea what it is, but it's pretty:

It starts with little red buds

That open into pink and white flowers.

It's hard to see here, but there are new leaves and little buds all over this spindly tree. I can't wait to see what matures!

One More thing...

If we owned this place, I would do this:

To this:

And so would you. Those slats look out on our back garden and I feel that it would work better to be more open than what it is now...being haunted by the early 80s...

Some Pretties

I went through my back issues and pulled some tear sheets for future reference:

I love doorknobs.

That little pink Ghost Chair at an art Table...swoon.


This + Book + Lemonade - flies = perfection

Happy Easter!

Gardening

I know everyone likes a good before and after, but I've just got the before and during...the "after" is going to take some planning. And help. Lots of help. Maybe even from trained professionals:

Before - Lemon Tree covered in Ivy.

After: Lemon tree with ivy removed. All of those green shoots on the trunk are purple-blossomed Lemony Goodness.

This - where the brown/orange filled patches are - had lots of empty/dirt and dandelion filled planters. Some of them were cute and those are in the garage. Just in case. Some of them were plastic and cracked and they're in our garbage bin. I have no idea what to put here, and it appears that our landlord didn't either. He seems to be of the When In Doubt Plant Spider Ferns, Ivy, or Cacti variety. And with little-to-no planning about where they go. I actually found all three in a single pot. Not Kidding.

This is what my kitchen window looks out on. There's an orange tree immediately to the left, which is what is shading it. I think that's all clover, but don't hold me to that.

Those are rose bushes and a random cacti in a plastic pot. I like the tree stump. I think it adds characters. And the neighborhood cats play in it, which giggles me. Back in the corner (on the right by the blue shed thing) are: a fig tree that's producing figs. A tree that's producing some kind of red berry and might be a plum tree? A stand of random bamboo, and a pile of detritus. The pile of detritus will be removed by our (mostly useless) gardener this week.

This is the other side. It's got a lot of potential, except for the randomly placed rose bushes. In that corner where the fences meet is another pile of detritus, also to be removed this week.

This is just sad. It's behind the garage/summer kitchen. We removed a lot of the dirt and dandelion filled pots today and decided that at one point it was a nicely landscaped piece of dirt. Now it's just neglected. Gardener might just get in there and reduce it to dirt. But then what do I plant?

Luckily we have a nursery here that's fairly helpful, but I'm definitely going to have to learn more about what will grow and how to grow it and then do the planning.

Like I said, there might be professionals involved.

I will leave you with something pretty:

In our front yard.

Something's been eating my oranges

It fell from the tree in the backyard at some point over the last day, and when I went out this morning all I found was an empty shell...and some exploded bits. Wonder what could be doing this?

Whatever it is has opposable thumbs, a deep love of overly ripe citrus, and was clearly not a girl scout. Good thing all I do is sweep the fallen oranges into the shrubs anyway and let them decompose. Natural fertilizer.

Infected

So right now when I walk outside it smells like orange blossoms, lemon blossoms, and roses. It's heavenly.

Then I walk around to the front of the house and see this:

My peach tree leaves are turning red. So I get closer:

Peach Tree Leaf Curl is what it's called and this is not even the grossest picture. So I'm off to the Orchard Supply place to pick up something that will help this. Although it might be too late.

Our gardener is worthless. Unfortunately, it's totally worth $30/month for him to come twice and mow. For now.