Buds!

When we saw this house initially, the day we bought it actually, I saw that we had this magnolia at the end of the driveway. It was September but so mild and rainy that there were actually a few buds at the very tiptop of the tree about to open. I was thrilled that it is the pink flowering variety, Jane. It will be opening all this week, in the rain again, but making me so happy. 

In the background is the growing pile of composted manure where I want the garden guys to make my new flower garden. There are still ten peonies left in the ground that need to be moved here. 27 total plants!!!

 In the back up against the deck is the Redbud, another tree that I love and anticipate opening this week. We planted five redbuds at our first house in TN and I imagine if they survived, they will be blooming next week, always later up on the mountain. So happy to have one this large and mature here in my last TN house. (she says!)

 The first tree in our yard to bloom was what I thought was an apple, but I was WRONG. It is a pear, which right now are in bloom all over the place, especially along the interstate highway. It is like everyone in Chattanooga decided to plant Bradford pears at the same time. Glorious, unless you have pollen allergies. Sorry to those sufferers. 

 The bad part about these trees is that they are very weak and often break off huge limbs and this is our mess. Only part of the tree lives and that one big limb looks like it could be the dying breath of this specimen. Bye bye bye.

 

I will be planting out these lettuces and a basil from Walmart into my porch flower boxes today. Red Sails leaf lettuce, and Romaine. They are hardy enough to withstand a frost or two, but if it is gonna happen, I can bring them inside. Don't want to lose that basil. I do have seeds, but will wait for really warm days to plant those. 

This is a week of anticipation and I will be practicing my patience skills. I am hoping to hear from my deck builder and my garden guys. In the meantime I am feeding my Spring lusts by watching the Youtube videos of Garden Answer. This gal and her husband are unbelievable and vlog almost daily about plants and landscaping and yard stuff. I am exhausted by their energy but it helps me anticipate the fun garden stuff I will be doing, when I have one. eeeoooow!

Gardening Begins!

O Boy! I am soooo excited. We are having wonderful weather, sunny and in the 70's all week. And yesterday my landscaper guys arrived to help me whip this place into shape. 

Here is a great before picture. Actually stuff has already been removed since we landed here in Sept. 2020, but we might as well look at what is current. A horrible 'lawn', but let's not be negative. It is going. But the good part is that the deck design has been fixed and we will have a deck that goes all the way from the left edge of the house to the garage, right over the sidewalk and will have those planters that I mentioned earlier this week. It will be made from Trex or some other brand name. Who knows, but what is important is NO maintenance. Since we have had decks like this previously, we are so happy about that. Once the deck is in, later this month, then real landscaping will be done. 

In the front of that yard we had a bunch of emerging peonies. Some are just buds while others are 8 inches tall already. Can't stay there, as I am sure major digging will have to be done to remove that Bermuda grass. So that was project #1 for my yard workers.

We have a bed on the southern side of the house which was full of the concrete-like clay and lots of climbing rose bushes, hydrangeas, day lilies and overgrown irises. I had the guys remove the climbers and a boat load of pavers, which in turn widened the bed, and then had 8 bags of composted manure dug in to lighten and nurish the bed. 

Then they transplanted 17 huge peonies from the front to this bed, spacing them a foot apart. Some have big buds on them so I expect to discover how many are red and how many are pink. I know I have at least one white one still in the ground, waiting for a space to be planted.

Peonies in place, ready to grow. Of course now that I have seen them here, and realize I have a place to put other things...I went shopping,  but it is still too early to buy additional plants.  This spot is in brutal sun most of the day so I am thinking coneflowers, and zinnia and of course my fave, nasturtiums. And if I can find a good bargain, lantana. Mulch comes next tho.

Those pavers under the porch had lined the edge of the bed and took up a lot of growing space. I suppose the previous gardener was sick of weeding and just shrunk the bed by placing them over the ground. The 'fence' is to keep the pups from escaping and as flimsy as it is, it works. They don't go under the porch anymore. 

 Remaining from my scorched earth plan is one pink rose, not a Knock Out, and really a nice bloomer which kept going til November last year. Then one big hydrangea, which Dave mistakenly cut down to the ground, but has big fat green buds coming up anyway, and one other hydrangea, maybe an Annabelle, we'll see. The clumps of daylilies are also up. I will add more, me thinks. 

At the driveway end of the this bed is a crape myrtle, which the workers gave a good haircut. It is pink and was truly overgrown, and now managable. In that curvy bed, besides the weeds are some pitiful old tulips which will not bloom as they were deprived of fertilizer over the years. Out! But some Asiatic lilies have broken through, and one wonderful Agapanthus is looking vigorous. You will note on the upper left, a pile of bags which are composted manure, and when my guys return they will bring this planting bed over to the turn around part of the driveway and I will have more of a sun filled bed to plant. I 'need' Baptisia, Black and Blue Salvia, specimen daylilies, and Superbells petunias. Maybe a miscanthus and if I am really lucky, some more Agapanthus. O my!

This is the Agapanthus

On the back porch I have a planter for my basil, right outside the kitchen. I got this at Walmart and it holds a full 1 cu ft. of potting soil. I already have the seeds, but will wait...eeeeow. Waiting is killing me!

Back to knitting.

Cowl Palace

If you find this confusing, you are not alone. I have made 10 of these cowls, yes 10 and most of them have been in this purple green aqua colorway. The only way I can tell them apart is by the beads on the pin!

This one (#10) was made for Patsy T.

and these three were made for Kay D. 

 

I have one more of these cowls on the needles and then I am starting a new scarf pattern...sorta new. It is a combo of several fave designs all wrapped into one.

I am very very grateful to everyone who played along and allowed me to knit for them. This is my joy.

Garden Time Approaches

 This is a tiny example of the non-grass we have in our front yard. Yuck. I want it all to go and then we can start over again from scratch. The shrub is staying however, as it is a gorgeous (I hope) pink Magnolia, which I have wanted all my gardening life. Yay! Still it needs tending and pruning and it will have more glory days to come. The whole front yard will have to be done over, removing the horrid Bermuda grass that is there and replacing it with plantings to make it a lovely garden. The plan keeps evolving in my mind, and we'll see how it transpires, here on the blog in weeks to come.

Part of my plan for the front yard is to have a ground level deck built because this house does not have a front porch. We have had a front porch in every house but one since we moved to Tennessee and so that has to happen here. This photo I found on Pinterest gives you the idea, altho I want mine painted light gray rather than stained. 

While gathering ideas, I saw this example, also on Pinterest:

and that reminded me of our deck in our first house up on the mountain in Palmer TN. I looked up old pics of this deck and here is a bird's eye view.

 Dave and his pal Mike built this on the slope along our pathway and it was glorious. Especially nice was the built in flower boxes all along three sides. The plants really enhanced the use of the deck and we loved seeing them grow all season long, safe from the moles, voles and chipmunks which were eating themselves silly in the other parts of the garden.

The initial plantings look so innocent, but the sweet potato vines got ENORMOUS and cascaded down off the deck into the walkway and overtook everything. I loved it. 

So now I am going to ask my deck builder people to make a deck like this again for me. Why not? You only live once!

Wet Blocking a Knit

In the comments yesterday, Pat B. asked: 

Melody, would you share your blocking method?

1. I fill the bathroom sink with lukewarm water and a little Suave hair conditioner in Coconut. Not essential but I have it and I like the aroma. Wool is hair so a little creme rinse or any detangler helps with the softness factor. I gently squeeze the water through the knit, making sure the saturation is complete and then drain the sink. I may or may not put it throught a clear rinse, depending on if I overdid the amount of conditioner first time around. I squeeze out but I do not wring out the remaining water and then lay the item on a thick bath towel, wrap it up and squeeze on it with my whole upper torso body weight. The towel absorbs much of the remaining water.

2. Then I gently arrange the knit on the rubber tiles pictured above. I don't stretch, but just gently pat into place, straightening from the center out. Then I pin the edges so they more or less look even. With these cowls I have been knitting, I have used various weights of yarn so some parts are narrower than others, which I then try to make equal. 

3. Let dry completely, usually I do this overnight. It is a very simple process and really makes a huge difference in the finished product, especially one with textured stitches or multiple yarns.

My tiles are that awful gray, and cost about $20 for 4 and are 24" each. If I had thought ahead I could have ordered these prettier ones from Lowe's for $24

Or these for $15. 

But I was in the store looking for fencing so my mind wasn't considering beauty at the moment. 

Speaking of beauty, look what I got in the mail yesterday:

I now have Happy Feet!

Dots and Dashes Cowl #7

 My instructions for this cowl were: 

"My sister loves color-anything bright would be great!" 

O boy! That really excited me and opened the door on my color choices.

 I chose one skein of Rios with multi-layers of color and found agreeable yarns to use with that theme.

This shows the full length on the drying tiles, wet and pinned. The center section is that theme yarn. Also included are Silky Merino, Rastita, Full of Sheep, Inca Gold,  Ice Merino, and three different colors of Rios. It is super soft and squishy. Just the way I like it. 

A room of one's own

I decided I wanted a tv in the knitting room, where we also have the guest bed/nap bed. Just a little tv to watch while I knit. So while I was at Walmart I looked for a small one and this 40" was the smallest. Seems to me that it is not very small. But the price was under $200, and I have been saving my knitting money, swearing to not buy any more yarn with it, so I figured why not? When I got it home I realised that it was too wide to fit any table or shelf in the house. Back to Walmart to find a solution. Why Walmart? Well, this was just supposed to be a quick little adjustment, and nothing important...heh heh, little did I know what this would lead to. 

As you can see it led to bookcases, two, which required assembly, something I am quite experienced at, having been a devotee of IKEA lo these many years. These are very similar to IKEA Billys and didn't require two hours there and back to buy them, since my closest IKEA is Atlanta. And of course I had to get a few of these nice fabric pop up boxes that were made to fill the cubbies. The assembly was aided by my purchase of a complete set of screwdrivers, which I have hidden in my knitting drawer so they are there when I look for them...and you can guess why. 

I put felt stick on pads on the bottom so I can move them around without scratching the floor, and you know they have been moved around already a couple of times, to find just the right place.

Since I have the tv, I moved my fave knitting chair out of the living room and into the knitting room, and now have the right lighting and a side table for my cuppa, and then I was happy. 

But wait, there's more...This room is adjacent to the bathroom, and just a few steps away from our master bedroom. Lately Dave has been having very weird nights. He talks out loud in his sleep, which then becomes a yelp or scream accompanied by lots of thrashing about. I tolerated it for a long while, but it really ruined me during the day because I would wake up and then try to go back to sleep only to be reawakened over and over again. He slept through it all and didn't know he was doing it. Crabby became my constant state and I would have to retreat to take a nap for hours almost every day. So as I looked at the nice room I had made for knitting and napping, I thought...why not clear it of everything that isn't mine, and call it my new bedroom. YES! So major closet and bookshelf, guitars and small chests of drawers moving took place over two days and now I have made it a perfectly Melody sanctuary. I slept so much better, even tho I still get up and dose him every two or three hours, but I can do that sorta without waking up. 

And I can't hear his vocalizing or yelling and that really makes a huge difference for my sleeping. And only one little dog sleeps with me here!

I am so much more my old self now and even Dave has noticed. Where is that short tempered complaining harridan? Gone!

And Dave now has the whole master bedroom for all his stuff, guitars, tools, etc. So we are both happy. Yay!!