House of Devign

My tree made it!

Golden chain blooms
Originally uploaded by basty

I never thought my Golden Chain tree would make it. When it got planted last summer, it immediately lost it's leaves, the branches started dying. It never got new leaves...

Then come early Spring, when all the other trees were shooting out their first leaves, and all their flowers, it still wasn't sprouting leaves. It wasn't dead, so I pruned off all the dead branches, and sat back to wait. The beginning of this month it all of the sudden decided it was going to attempt to grow. I have been waiting for it to do something for so long I could scarcely believe it. Then 2 days ago it started blooming.

Isn't it lovely?

It is not much more than a few twigs on a trunk at this point, but it has at least a dozen of the chains of blooms. The one pictured is the first one to emerge completely. I am hoping that it will sprout some branches this year, and strengthen. The leaves on it are very nice, and this tree is unlike any other tree in the neighborhood, so it is really eye-catching.

Unfortunately, even though my tree is blooming, one of my two rose bushes has not fared well. I can't figure out what is wrong with it. It does not have a disease, it is not bug infested, and it is getting watered properly. It will sprout a few leaves, then they die, and the cycle is repeated. I am in the midst of deciding whether or not to just dig it up and get rid of it or wait it out. Since we are in the middle of landscaping, I can do either.

Speaking of landscaping, we are now the poud owners of concrete curbing for our pathway. Nothing else, but curbing is a start. It has to finish curing this weekend and then they will come and flagstone it in. I am super excited to get things done, and the more work is completed, the more Ideas I have. I plan on keeping the front of the house in the style of an English garden, and the back yard is a Japanese garden with an updated look. I promise more photos as soon as there is something to show!

Caution! Landscaping underway!!

 So... Nathan and I have called out the calvary to FINALLY put in our path around the side of the house. The calvary = landscapers.   So far, they have only been able to pound the ground flat and spray paint it. It will soon have concrete sides and flagstone in the middle. Even though it is only at this stage, it is already really nice to have. We no longer have to brace ourselves when we walk around the corner to prevent slipping and falling.

 

The sad thing is, we cant afford to finish the patio in the back, it is just out of our price range, and we still have many other things that need to be done. What we did have money for was to have a raised bed planter put in for veggies, have our far side of the house pounded flat so we could put in a leanto shed, and have a giant pit a la "300" installed.

This is where I plan on kicking my enemies, so don't piss me off!!! 

I kid, this giant pit and trench is actually the start of our pond and stream. You can barely see the pile of dirt that will be our waterfall. The picture makes it seem really shallow, but in reality it is about 3 feet deep in the center. We had to have the landscapers do the work because our soil is like rocky concrete, and virtually impossible to dig in. They had to jackhammer this hole out, and it was worth every penny.

But that is not the only new thing we have. We have been working on the front yard a bit and have a new feature:

 

We now have a small pond under our bay window. It is really nice to hear, and will be even nicer when we get rock to finish it. It took a weeked to complete, and was relatively inexpensive. The frogs already like it. In addition, we did a bit of other work to the front:

 

We finally yanked out our annoying pine tree that stabs you, and drops needles everywhere. It took a few hours to get out, as it was particularly stubborn. So stubborn that Nathan broke our shovel on the roots. We had to go buy a new shovel to plant this new little beauty, a "Salix Hakuro Nashiki" willow (look to the right). The newest leaves start out white, and as they get older, they turn green. It will eventually start to droop, but for now it is this happy little puff ball on a stick.

Additionally, you may notice the fabric on the ground. I was able to remove a fair bit of our wood chips, since they were bleached out and rotting. The landscapers remove the rest, since they showed up before i could finish the job, but now I am left with the fabric, which will have to be removed/replaced. I plan on putting in more rock and flagstone while creating circular beds in which to have flowers. It will just take more money and time.

I promise to update my blog again as soon as the landscapers finish they work, which will hopefully be within a week... HOPEFULLY.