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Gardening & Jeremy Irons

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If my super fantabulous garden remodel doesn’t interest you, scroll your bootie down to OTHER NEWS.

FANTABULOUS GARDEN REMODEL

Another portion of the Garden Remodel is complete! We had a hideous corner by our shed that’s just been one of those spots of the garden that never seemed to look good – you know, those areas you just turn a blind eye to to avoid retching every time you see them?

The BEFORE picture. Ick!

The BEFORE picture. Ick!

THE IDEA: The idea came from a garden design book from Jolly Ol’ England (seriously, the English have some inherent gardening gene…possibly bred into them so they could fill in the grounds around their castles). The original design had large planks going over a pond in sort of a Japanese-style setting. Well, we’ve already tried a pond in this corner and it didn’t work, but I loved this idea so much I HAD to make it work (I’m stubborn that way).

So I thought and thought and BAM, how about a fake pond made of rocks? Oh yeah! We couldn’t find any planks so I designed some wooden steps that would lead down from our hillside and have the staggered look of the planks in the design book. After much explaining, many drawings and even some cardboard cut outs, Mr. Husband finally understood what I wanted him to build (I don’t do power tools…I need my fingers for typing!).

As he spent time in the garage cursing and fitting things together and cursing some more, I moved plants and filled in the “pond.”

THE PROCESS: Around the old pond (a real pond), I had laid rocks once before and they were swallowed by the mud monster that lives in our yard, so I wanted to lay something down first. Too cheap to buy landscape fabric, I simply “re-purposed” some old towels and t-shirts. Over this, I put some sand to hide the fabric, then a layer of river rock – dug out from various areas of the yard. Lucky for us our neighbors had some smaller, multicolored river rock that they didn’t want so I spread this over for the top layer. This really gave the “pond” some color and interest. Thanks Neighbors!

PLANTING: Within the pond, I planted some Carex which I’m hoping looks sort of like a bog-type plant once it gets a bit bigger. Around the pond are shade- & moisture-loving plants like bleeding heart, hellebore, trillium and ferns.

We still have some cleaning up to do around the “pond” and need to put facing on the edges of the steps, but all in all, I think we rocked this aspect of the Garden Remodel!

The AFTER picture. Ooh lala!

The AFTER picture. Ooh lala!

OTHER NEWS

  • A publisher has recently expressed an interest in publishing Simply Soft Cheese. I won’t jinx it by counting my advance money before it’s hatched, but this was super exciting news. This also means, if you want to get the book cheap (the publisher is bound to raise the retail price), you better get your copy now!
  • Thanks to a smart ass Twitter comment, I had a chance to interview Jeremy Irons this week. It was to be a video question, but unfortunately HuffPost Live must have realized I’ve got a face for radio and my question didn’t make the cut. Sigh…I’m breaking out the wrinkle cream.
  • No pets died this week. Although a squirrel did get stuck in a bird feeder.But, after a daring Rocket J. Squirrel style leap into the daphne shrub, he’s fine.
  • I’ve done a spring cleaning on my website, so take some time to explore the new menus and features (check out that sidebar!) and feel free to send me a message on my new handy dandy contact form.

 

 

 

 



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