Backyard landscaping: Year two

My backyard landscaping isn't doing great. Last year, I started from bare dirt and planted a whole lot of things. Some purchased, some given to me. But the only thing that came back from winter was a whole lot of failure. Well, that's not totally true. The lamb's ear went from a few of these sad-looking transplants:

to this:

This is my kind of plant. No water, no attention, and spreads like crazy. Well done, lamb's ear, well done.

But other than that, everything I planted last year has been a disappointment.

Juniper: dead. (Likely my fault.)

Purple fountain grass: dead. (Turns out I didn't know our zone number last year. Lesson learned. Don't trust that a plant labeled "perennial" is truly a perennial unless it's also labeled with your zone number.)

Ferns: came back, but still pretty small.

Iris: came back, but again, puny. It's probably a slow grower.

Hostas: about half of them came back, but all still very small.

Bleh.

As a reminder, I have imposed a rule that everything I plant has to be drought tolerant and easy to care for. I am not interested in high maintenance plants. I've got a whole lot of bare dirt to cover, so let's start round two.

I decided I needed some height, so I bought a bush from a local nursery. (Yes, one bush. Wouldn't want to rush things.)

This one is called Little Henry sweetspire. Elise likes to hug it and say, "I love Little Henry!" It has these long white cone flowers, and when in full bloom, it looks like it's covered in caterpillars. A weird looking plant, but we like weird around here.

I added in some decorative rocks that were tucked away in the corner of our property. Some are geodes, some are granite, others are some type of lava rock, I think. All kind of craggly and oddly shaped.

While I was at the nursery, I also grabbed a couple of fillers/ground covers.

First, to plant at the base of some large trees, I found this shade perennial Lamium "White Nancy." (Yes, I brought "Henry" and "Nancy" home from the nursery.) The label says it grows in part shade or full shade. Drought tolerant, animal resistant. Fast spreading. Basically indestructible, right? We will see. It's doing OK for now.

Then, for a sunnier area, I got some catmint "Walker's Low." Also drought tolerant, animal resistant. "Weed choking." It's saying all of the right buzz words. It's supposed to get about 18-24" tall/wide. It's right next to the lamb's ear, so I hope they play well together.

I'm being hyper-vigilant about keeping everything well watered for a few weeks. I can't deal with any more failures!

Even more backyard treasure!

When my dad was digging the trench for our new drainage pipe, he just kept running into all sorts of things. Chunks of concrete, old bricks, rocks, plastic bags, trash, etc. This is the norm around here. You can't stick a shovel down more than about six inches without hitting something.

So let's have a little show and tell so you can see what we found this time.

First, like I said. Loads of broken concrete, rocks, etc. Enough to fill those three plastic flowerpots. I know it's hard to judge the scale of things in photos, but I can barely lift any one of these plastic pots. I wrote "buckets" above, but they are 2.25 gallon flowerpots I'm re-purposing for rock storage.

And then there's the more exciting stuff. The pretty stuff.

Pieces of a green ceramic bowl. It seems so strange to think that the course of action for a broken bowl would be to bury it on the side of the house, but I suppose it's almost the same as what we do now. We just do it communily, with trucks and pick ups and a heck of a lot more garbage.

And a retro Pepsi cap in perfect condition. I thought this was old given the short ingredient list, but according to Wikipedia, this logo was in use from 1970 to 1997, so maybe it's not all that old.

And since I'm on the subject of buried treasure, I'll show you what else I dug up a week or two ago while transplanting some perennials. An old rotting timber! Exciting! My resident backyard woodpecker was so happy with me for digging this up.

I know it looks like it just shot up out of the ground, but it was horizontal underground and I lifted one end up 90 degrees. Elise is about three feet tall, and I think the fence is around six feet, so that gives you an idea of how big this thing was.

Want to see what else I've found in my backyard over the years? Of course you do! Click here!

Crooked tree, crooked tree

My backyard is looking a little naked.

It started when we had this dying and crooked maple tree removed. It wasn't doing well, and during every thunderstorm, I had that nagging thought in the back of my head that it just might come down. On the neighbor's house.

Dying trees don't really improve with time, so we bucked up and forked over the big bucks to have it removed by professionals.

Then it was on to tree #2. A much smaller red bud that was even more crooked.

This tree had been on the downhill slide for a while, and the trunk was completely rotted out. I wasn't worried about it coming down onto anything, but I wanted to remove it now so that we could plant a replacement before winter.

It was in such bad shape, I was convinced we just might be able to push it over with our bare hands. Elise and I tried, and while the tree gave quite a bit and a couple of large chunks broke off, it wasn't going anywhere. So my dad came over to cut it up with a chainsaw.

Now it's gone and the yard feels empty. I'm open to any and all suggestions for a small flowering tree to replace the red bud. Part sun/part shade. Anybody have any recommendations?

Bye bye tree...

Bye bye backyard concrete

Before

Outside our back door, we have a lot of cracked up concrete. Some of it's part of a sidewalk, but then there are parts that are totally function-less. They aren't flat. (They weren't poured flat.) It's just weird, broken, useless concrete. That's an old photo above; the fence is long gone and the garage door has also been updated.

Removing it was on the long-term to-do list, but you know, not a major priority.

Non-impressive after

But while he was over working on the porch in front, my dad decided he would take some of it out. I guess he just felt like demolishing something, and when someone wants to help with a laborious task like breaking up concrete, I'm not going to turn them down.

Turns out the concrete was poured over a bed of flagstones. Not the smartest thing to do. No wonder it was cracked and broken.

We salvaged what we could of the flagstone, so after repurposing my former flagstone stash into a border, I now have a new stash to repurpose into something else.

About 50 square feet of concrete gone and a whole lot more to go...

Glass, glass and more glass: More backyard finds

I mentioned before that I've found shards of glass in our backyard. Every time I dig a hole to plant something, I unearth some. And every time it rains, I can expect to find a few new pieces exposed on the surface of the dirt. I actually challenge myself to find at least two or three pieces every time I'm in the backyard. 

Maybe that's silly, but I would feel terrible if Elise got a hold of a piece and cut herself. She's a tight-fisted clutcher of small objects, and I can picture her grabbing a shard and slicing her little hand. Ouch!

Honestly, I thought I'd gotten most of it as my hunts produced fewer and fewer specimens.

But then... I hit the mother lode and dug up so much glass it filled a plastic dish tub. The source was in the back corner of our lot, likely our property's personal landfill from back in the day. I kept digging until I couldn't find any more, but after many hours, I was done with dirt for a while and cordoned off an adjacent area for future exploration.

Plastic owl to the rescue! (Maybe.)

I hate squirrels. The animal lover in me never thought I would say this, but they are a horrible nuisance and I hate them.

They dig holes in my yard and my flower pots, eat their lunch on my porch and leave all the nut shells laying there, and one time, one even pooped on my brother from above. Have you ever heard of anyone getting pooped on by a squirrel? I'm guessing no.

At any given time, I can look out my back door and see three to eight squirrels conducting what appear to be fitness trials and feats of strength. They have the run of the place and it's only a matter of time before they claim our house as their own. (I'm only sort of kidding here.)

I found this plastic pest-deterrent owl in like-new condition at an antique mall (for about a dollar cheaper than a new-new one), and I decided to try and scare the squirrels a little.

I was going to fill it with sand to weigh it down, but then I remembered all the rocks and chunks of concrete I've collected up in the yard. Sand is inexpensive, but free rocks are better. I filled it with so many rocks it took two hands to carry and perched it up on our fence-less fence post.

I don't know if it will work, but even if it doesn't, I like the way he looks. Guardian of the yard!

Salvaged flagstone border

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New outdoor furniture: Sunny yellow retro glider

We were in Lowe's the other day, shopping for what exactly, I can't remember. But I took a detour through the patio furniture department and spotted this retro glider. 

We have no patio furniture... probably because we don't have a deck or a patio! But I love this style and the piece was all metal (important because metal can be repainted and repainted and repainted and they last forever). I couldn't pass it up for fear they wouldn't sell it anymore when we do get around to having a deck or patio one of these years.

I thought it would be a great shot of color in our backyard and a cute place to sit while Elise is playing in her sandbox. I might move it someplace else, but for now it's back by the fence.

And it was only $118! I thought that was a pretty good price for an all-metal piece, but then I came home and searched for similar pieces. I couldn't find anything for under $200 online. Bargain!

Sneak Peek: Flagstone border

I'll have a longer update on the backyard landscaping next week, but I wanted to give you a sneak peek of my flagstone border. Hopefully, we will have some decent weather this weekend so I can finish this last third!

This tree should be falling down, right?

I thought I would take a brief pause from the parade of party posts to show you something completely unreleated. I've mentioned before that our backyard is/was a total fixer upper. I've shown you what I've been doing on the right side of the yard, but so far I've ignored showing you the left side. I can only tackle so much at once and I'm guessing most of you are only interested in landscaping in small doses.

Anyway, I wanted to give you a peak at this tenacious red bud tree in our backyard. I am not sure how it is still standing because the trunk is completely hollow and eaten away. I don't remember it being this way last fall. Just what my backyard needs -- more projects.

More backyard treasures

With all the yardwork we've been doing, we've been uncovering a lot of treasures (trash?). Our house is 81 years old, so it's anyone's guess what might be lurking under the surface of the dirt. In some cases, I couldn't even get a shovel down more than a few inches without hitting something.

It's been kind of like a treasure hunt/excavation site, and although it's worthless junk, it's still kind of fun. All of you with newer houses, apartments and condos are going to be totally jealous by the end of this post.

Concrete, concrete and more concrete, mostly in small chunks. This is just the beginning. What I've found so far probably would fill a five-gallon bucket and there's more to be found for sure. I've also found lots of crumbling terra cotta pavers and some broken bricks.

And then there's the treacherous stuff.

More glass shards than a toddler's backyard should contain...

This photo is completely unstaged. Really!

And a rusty saw blade.

And then there's the big stuff...

A three-foot length of cast iron pipe

A huge chunk of concrete (lower left) and a two to three foot piece of a concrete curb. I suspect there's another piece down there, but I was too lazy to dig it out that day.

And a few more interesting things...

A ceramic beer bottle stopper, a white hexagonal tile (weird because this was not the original tile in our bathroom) and a decaying rubber ball.

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See some of the other weird things I found in my backyard last year.