Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Pool

Well I couldn't sleep last night again. Was still up at 6 a.m. so I decided to go for a swim. Man the water was awesome to. It was nice and cool and so relaxing! After I swam I got out and dried off and I tilled up the outer area of the flower bed I am going to put around it. By the time I was done I needed to jump back in the pool I was so hot. ;) Not a breeze stirring at all. I will get the grass out of this now and then I can till it up again. Hopefully it will rain again and help soften this soil, it's like trying to till through concrete! Man my arms is so sore already from that tiller jiggling me like one of those things that breaks up concrete.
At least this is a start on my flower bed now. I am very happy to have that much done so far.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Gardening and Yard Work

Wanted to get on here and tell you that I am still alive. ;) Just really busy with the garden and stuff like that.

I don’t know about where you live, but it has been SO HOT here until you don’t want to step foot outside. Unbearably hot! So needless to say I haven’t been doing very much outside.

We got the pool installed Sunday was a week ago. We finally have figured out how to do everything we’ve needed to do so far. We are really enjoying this thing to! I have hit it everyday so far and some days two and three times. The days I can work outside and I get really hot, I run jump in the pool and cool off and go at it again. That really helps cool you off to and helps ya get another burst of energy to do some more.

So today we had a nice little shower and after the shower I got there and laid out the flower bed around the pool area with the water hose and then spray painted it so I would know where my edge will go. My plans are to border the edge of it with monkey grass.  Also had bought some square stepping stones yesterday and we unloaded those out of the car. Was much too hot when we got in yesterday to unload them and since we weren’t using the car, we just left them.

I am trying to figure out WHERE I want to put the patio now. We went ahead and placed them on the ground in hopes it would kill the grass. ;)

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I want to put some banana trees on the backside of it and some elephant ears as well so I can hide that ugly shed. Then I have some canna with yellow veins I want to put in the area around the pool with all the yellow daylilies. I’ve got to put some round up the grass between the stones. As you can see I have already put some around the pool area and 3’ out from it where I was going to do the flower bed around it. See the area I have the square stones laid out on the left side of the pic?  That’s where I had thought about putting the patio but I think it’s going to be too close to the ladder because his plans are to do a deck where the ladder is. This will probably be later on but I need to put that in my plans now so I don’t have to be moving things later. The monkey grass there beside where I have the square stones now is going to be moved so I can have monkey grass around the flower beds edge and not around the patio itself.

Decisions, decisions and I can’t make up my mind. I jsut don’t want to have to move anything later after it gets to growing pretty. Also I’ve got to leave room in and around the filter area to be able to get in there and clean the filter etc.

Also I am trying to think about what I can put around the patio over the grass so I wont have to be weed eating it.

IF I do decide to leave the patio where it is I will have to level the ground because it dips in on the middle of it. I’ve got to get 25 more stones for it so it’s not as big as it will be. It will be a little over 8’x8’ so I can sit our patio table and chairs on it. Also I want to put those round stepping stones in the ground so they don’t stick up.

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Anyway I am working on it little by little and when I can due to this heat wave we’re having. One day the heat index got up to 110. OUCH HOTTTTTT!

Hope you all are having a great week so far!

Rose

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Pool, Garden and the Yard

Yep we’re getting a pool and I’m excited right now! I am like a kid at Christmas time, I can’t wait! lol Hubby is out there now trying to till up the hard soil so we can dig it out and level it. The pool is 18’ wide so we’re making the circle a little larger than that. As you can see the right side is about 4” higher than the left side. I want to plant some of my banana trees on the back side of it where the power line wire thingie is over there at the top right of the pic. We had to get into my flower bed where the tiller is but that’s ok to. I can redo that and add it to my landscape around the pool.

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I’ve been needing to dig up and thin out my yellow daylilies along the walkway so now I can do that. Then plant them ALL IN around the pool and around the front of it so it will fit into my landscape.

In the next pic you can see where the patio is and the stepping stones leading out toward our shed. I want to paint it a pretty soft brown color and add some things on the sides of it to make it fit into the landscape as well. The little metal door there propped up against it is a little door that hubby needs to put on the house so we can have something to get under the house with in case we need to.

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Anyway I want to extend the stepping stones to the pool and I will also move the monkey grass so it will be around the edge of all the flower beds around the pool.

 

Another shot of the area where the pool will go. This flower bed where the banana trees are will join the pool flower bed. I wanted to wait until he got it tilled up so I could lay some water hoses out to see just how I want to lay it out.

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See all the yellow daylilies? Those along the walk have been there for like 5 or more years now and need thinning out. So I am going to use some of those around the pool area.

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This is another type I have that is pretty but I can’t plant them together or they will go back to the original kind.

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I also have these I can plant here and there around it as well. These need thinning out BAD!

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OK now for the garden…..

I just this morning picked my first harvest from the garden. ;)

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A baby one on the bush. Isn’t it just too cute?

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And more coming on. These things are FULL of blooms!

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