Plants Plants Plants

Apparently I can’t get enough plants for our home, or maybe it’s the fact that I kill so many of them.  Either way we have some new additions to the clan.

It all started with this guy….

Justin’s grandmother gave me this plant for Easter and it is actually doing great.  It has gotten a lot bigger since coming to live at our house and I really like it.  It is a mandevilla, it is a viney plant that grows pretty pink flowers.  Only problem is that it has out grown it’s little trellis that it came with.  It was now reaching for anything else to grow on, including itself.  All of the vines were wrapping around themselves.

Poor thing, see all of the vines twisting around themselves on the left side of this photo?  It was doing that everywhere.  I did try to be a good plant mom and purchase a new trellis at walmart, but they did not have any.  They only had tomato cages…

So, I took one of those home and popped it around the mandevilla.  It seemed to help somewhat and it started to climb the plant cage, but soon it started to outgrow it’s pot and it was starting to tip to one side in the plant stand.  I knew it was time to plant it in the garden and give it a better home with a real trellis, not an imposter tomato cage.  I removed the tomato cage and look how sad the plant then looked…

My plants always look so sad, I am really trying here though people!

I also ran to Lowes and picked up a new larger trellis…

Look at that beauty, I think my little mandevilla plant will be very happy.   I also picked up a bag of top soil and another bag of red mulch.  I then dug a decent whole for the new trellis and the plant.

As I went, I pulled up all the weeds that were pooping through the mulch and any rocks that I came across.

I swear we will never be rid of all of these asphalt rocks that the previous owner had in the garden.

Next I plopped the trellis in the newly dug whole…

Next in went the plant.

I surrounded the plant with top soil and then recovered the hole with any remaining dirt that I had dug up.

Still looking oh so sad.  I am really mentally willing the poor little plant to turn around and realize it has an awesome new tall trellis.

I then added the new mulch…

There she is all planted safely in the ground, hope she does well here.

Since I moved the mandevilla to the garden I now had an empty plant stand.  I felt compelled to fill it, so while at Lowes I picked up a hibiscus plant, they are so beautiful.

It’s orange and pink, I mean come on, tell me that’s not pretty!

Fits perfectly next to our front door.

One more…

Zack decided to hop in this one.

And here is our front yard with the new additions…

Lovely.

I wasn’t quite done there though.  I also picked up a new hanging plant for the backyard since I have managed to kill all three of the petunia hanging baskets.

It is a purslane hanging basket, apparently it blooms for summer and fall.

I love all of my plants and I am hoping I am getting better at taking care of them, wish me luck!

Laying Pavers

As you hopefully already know, you should not grill in an enclosed area.  AKA we cannot use the big green egg in our patio.  This is how we have been dealing with this dilemma…

Yes, that is a piece of particle board.  You don’t have to tell us we are high class… we know.  Also as you can see, Char man was checking out how fancy the particle board was as well.  Would you like another view of our set up?

We just put the particle board next to the door and wheeled that heavy sucker right out of the patio.  From there we can grill safely.   If we didn’t put something sturdy in the yard to put the egg on it would sink right into the grass.  The egg is like 200 pounds, pretty hefty.  I was digging the particle board, but Justin decided pavers might look a little nicer.  So it is time to part with the particle board and move on.   Justin picked out these pavers from Lowe’s.

Then from there he built a two sided wood frame to place against the patio in the size he wanted the area to be.  This made it so he knew how much he needed to dig and where he needed to dig.  Then he started removing the sod in that area.  He also dug out some of the soil so the pavers would be level with the patio.   From there he poured in a layer of sand.

He used a rake to get the sand spread and level.

Once the sand was in he started laying the pavers, making sure they were level with the patio as he went.  Once all of the pavers were in place, he poured on another layer of sand.  He then swept the sand into all of the spaces between the pavers.

He’s so talented.

Now the egg has a nice solid area to live on.

Love it.

The excess sand will eventually wash away.  It is almost completely gone already.   Here’s a close up.

I love that the area doesn’t take up too much of our already small yard, but is big enough to grill and hang out on.