Garden and Yard Day

Today was Yard and Garden Day at the Parks' house.  I love my yard, it is always so beautiful in the summer.  But it takes a few days of work to get it started.

Frank cut the grass, I worked the beds.  We really don't have beds here because that old Oak tree gets roots in everything.  So I have aluminium buckets, big buckets!  Full of my color.

So here we are working.  I took on the big buckets of flowers and Frank took on his palm trees.


The palm trees had outgrown the small containers they were living in.  Here Frank replants the three palms I got last year for $2 each.  They look really poor right now but were gorgeous all summer.  The winter gave them a big hit but they will do well in these new containers.


 The buckets were full of oak tree roots.  I had to dump all the soil and remove the roots.  With no roots the flowers will blossom into gorgeous color

 These are the two beds with new summer flowers -- petunias, rosemary, begonias, verbena and zinnias.  The zinnia was the most beautiful cream color I have ever seen, like a wedding bouquet.  This big bucket is waiting for the caladiums that Carrie and I ordered.  Each year we have huge caladiums in about 4 or 5 places in the yard.

At Lowe's I scored an entire flat of white petunias that needed some TLC for $2.50.  I added them to my collection of odd flowers and gave the rest to Carrie, who was working on her own yard today.

See the caterpillars?  They are Heliotheria or forest tent caterpillars.  They group for warmth and look like they are sending out signals by forming words on the tree.  I think they are asking for a Mardi Gras Mask here.

Here, DiNozzo looks over the work we did and pronounces it good!  Last year he ate most of my flowers the day after I planted them, so I will watch that turkey this next week, very very closely.


 This is the patio looking toward the house.  That is the back of the garage you see here.  Carrie and I laid that patio using stones we selected at the stone yard.  They delivered them the next day.  We cleared the grass, laid the hardware cloth, laid sand and set the stones.  Then we used tiny pea gravel to fill in the holes around the stones.  The pea gravel is long gone, a victim of sprayers.  But I am cultivating moss to grow in between the stones and I like it better than the gravel, which always hurt my feet anyway.

 The is the side of the patio, looking from the house into the yard.  You can see the Japanese water garden beyond the tree with the caterpillars on it.


 And here is looking at the patio from the yard but across to the fence.  the back of the garage is on the right side to give you a point of reference.  I did spend the day picking those caterpillars off me.  They are clumsy and fall out of the trees constantly.

This is looking out into the yard from the patio.  There is the Japanese waterway leading into the Japanese water pond with the loon and the turtle, traditional Japanese elements.  And the "water" pours out under the cement bench and ripples formed with dark green monkey grass spread out in the lighter St Augustine grass.  It really is pretty.

you should stop by and sit with me on the patio before it gets too hot.  Although with all the trees, we sit out there all year long, even in the summer afternoons.  The birds are singing and the squirrels running from tree to tree, and the dogs barking............and the sun sets in the west!  A beautiful day.