Sage Advice

We have a relatively steep hill on one side of the yard that has presented an interesting landscaping design challenge. I've drummed up a few schemes over the time we've been here, but haven't really settled on an overall plan. I knew I wanted a relatively tall, full plant along the top row to create a border, but not peak over the fence and distort our neighbor's view. This plant also needed to be heat and drought tolerant once established.

After pondering drought tolerant vegetation and the cost of purchasing the mass needed, the thought occurred to me to utilize a plant that was already doing well in the yard.

Meet Russian Sage.

This fragrant, purple shrub would do well as a border plant and was free! All I had to do was dig up runners and clip limbs.

With a bucket of clippings, I climbed the hill and began laying out my plan of attack.

The top of the hill was cleared of existing vegetation (read: weeds) and the sage clippings were evenly spaced.

 
Across the length of the hill, twenty-eight clippings were planted. Were I to purchase that many Russian Sage from a local nursery, the cost would have been around $200. Sure, the plants would have been a bit further along and more visually pleasing, but I'm patient. Especially when I'll get the same effect for free.

With the hard part of digging in the clay over, I'm working my way across the hill, laying down geotextile fabric to prevent weed growth and covering everything in pond pebbles. Cedric spent an afternoon running irrigation, so now all the clippings are watered consistently with a turn of a knob.

 

It's been a few weeks since the runners and clippings have been in the soil and they've all taken root. New growth has appeared and things are looking green and healthy.

Growing with the Garden

Last year was my first growing season in the mountains. I was really excited about the prospect of growing a few vegetables and planted my seedlings outdoors in April. In the southeast, this was a perfect time of the year to get your garden going, so I paid no heed to my neighbor's warning of potential snow and went about the business setting up tomatoes, corn, onions, and green beans.

Then in May it snowed.

Not a lot, mind you, but enough for me to panic and cover my precious seedlings in plastic. Then I left the plastic on for a week for fear of more snow. This was silly of me to do because I ended up steaming most of what I had started.

So, I replanted what was lost and chalked that up as a lesson learned. Things were coming along, although the plants were looking rather stunted. The concoction of soil we amended to make garden-ready-dirt was obviously not chock full of nutrients. Again, another lesson learned.

Despite having a munchkin veggie patch, I was pleased with the garden growth and happy to be actively learning the growing season by trial and error. My tiny corn stalks did begin producing ears, but never quite produced something edible. The tomatoes eventually exploded with fruit, albeit much later than I anticipated and nothing much larger than a golf ball. The thing that did the best was the sunflowers. They grew to a perfect height for me to appreciate their beauty, then fed the local bird population.

Once everything died down, I began composting kitchen scraps directly in the soil. Earthworms appeared and the dirt turned from sandy brown to a rich, dark brown. This year's growing season was looking a bit more promising.

I resisted planting anything outside until the end of May. Thinking I was past any last cold snap, my tomatoes went in the ground and the very next day it snowed. 

Luckily, the temperatures did not dip low enough to kill off anything and the garden has continued to flourish.

Volunteer squash popped up in the middle of my tomato patch.

One lone onion that was left in the ground from last year's try proved itself. I hadn't the heart to pluck it from the ground, seeing that it survived the winter. Plus, I thought it'd be interesting to see its life cycle.

This onion scape has doubled in size, bloomed and is now going to seed.

I thought, perhaps, the tomatoes were as large as they were going to get at this point.

Same with these sunflowers. I expected a bloom at any day when they reached this height.

But things have continued to grow.

The volunteer squash has gone out of control.

And I can no longer see the tops of the sunflowers.

The sugar snap peas have done much better than last year. We've been eating them in salads and stir fries. Delicious!

Volunteer squash blooms. . .

The green bean shrubs are still quite small, but at least they survived this year. I've gotten maybe a dozen beans off of them.

Roma tomatoes are popping out.

And more volunteer squash.

This photo was taken this morning. I now realize I have a serious overcrowding issue, but it's a little late to deal with that. Next year I'll try to be more conscientious of spacing between plants. I honestly expected things to be stunted or die off again, so I planted a bit more than I thought would actually grow.

Plus those darn handful of volunteers.

I'm tossing this image up to show the tiny grape vine that was planted at the beginning of spring and our neighbor's visiting cat. It's been slow going, but things are picking up now that the weather has warmed up.

 

Although there's been a learning curve, I'm quite happy with the progress of growing things around here. Learning the pattern of sunlight, moisture needs, nutrient requirements and the like is always interesting and will allow me to continue developing the curb appeal and backyard ambiance.

Blinds and Shades

I'm finding more and more that when one is allowed to do what they want in their own home, that one becomes increasingly picky and controlling. Or maybe that's just me.

Since all the blinds were ripped from the windows before we bought the house, we've been needing some window coverings. Due to the configuration of the house (the main house is blocked from street view by the garages), I haven't been hard pressed to find a solution quickly. That means I've had time to ponder what exactly would work in each room. After careful consideration, I decided roman shades were neat and I wanted them. 

A few minutes of poking around the internet made it clear that anything commercially available was a bit too bland for my liking and any custom order would cost more than I was willing to pay. Since I have a sewing machine, I figured it might as well be put to good use. I began the search for the perfect fabric. This proved to be the most difficult aspect of the project since relying on an uncalibrated monitor and vague fabric descriptions isn't always reliable. Initially, I purchased fabric that had a dark red print on natural fabric. Although I really liked the combination when it arrived, I had intended the red pattern to be on a bright white fabric. In hindsight, I'm glad I did purchase that swath of fabric since it gave me a chance to practice making the shades.

The single bay windows looked lonely, so off I went to make test shades.

 

I've never been a strong sewer and was not confident in my ability to make the shades correctly my first try. After reading and re-reading a tutorial and checking and double-checking measurements, I began laying out the fabric.

The pattern I followed utilized inserting dowels into channels sewn on the back lining material.

With washers sewn on the back and string threaded to make things function, the shades were ready to hang.

Although not perfect, I was pleased with the way they turned out and functioned. The semi-success of the first set of shades bolstered my confidence enough to progress with "Shade Build S/N 002."

I really need to paint the garage walls.

I couldn't resist showing off the irises.

The next set was destined for the office. For this set, I really wanted the pattern on both the front and back panels of the shade. This presented a new problem of dowel placement. I couldn't utilize the channel method due to the heavy pattern of the shade. Well, I could have, but creating channels that flowed with the pattern would have been a pain.

Instead, the dowels were inserted between the two panels, sewing the bottom line with the sewing machine and securing it in place with strategically located hand-sewn stitches.

After the first shade was complete and ready to hang, I taped it in the office to see how things looked. Unfortunately, I had not accounted for the heavy pattern showing through both panels when lit behind. The shades from the inside of the office were extremely busy.

Viewing them from the outside - they looked great.

After a few minutes of pouting, I grabbed the lining fabric I had left from Shade Build S/N 001 and mocked up a double sided curtain with two panels of lining in the middle. Although this method did not completely block out the pattern bleed through, it did help. I've yet to hang them properly, but I'm quite excited about the shades and am prepping for developing roman shades for the rest of our naked  windows.