Pictures, as promised

Nana's watering can filled with evolvulus & fuscia


Some of my petunias

And just for shits & giggles, kittehs!
(Also, see how nice my kitchen floor turned out, Daddy? I guess I absorbed some handy skills from you somehow, haha)

Nothing much else new to report in Two Turtles Garden, except some of my tomatoes are ripening, woot! I also now have wireless access again, thanks to some of my neighbors, so I can sit out back & work on their signal with much faster results than my cheapo (OK, free) work dial up connection. Yippee!

Camp-out in Two Turtles Garden

No new pictures for this post, but I put some annuals in yesterday where I had cut back some of the perennials that have started to die off for the season. I put in some petunias in honor of my good friend, Petunia and planted some pretty evolvulus and fuschia in my Nana's watering can that my mom gave me. It looks very nice sitting by my flamingo, Tapawingo. I will take some pictures and post them soon.

As I had taken a quilt and pillow out in the back garden to lounge about in the late afternoon sun to enjoy my date with Harry, as evening came on and then night and I was starting to get sleepy, I decided to bring out a blanket and doze under the strip of stars I can see between the roof and the woods that back my deck. It was a nice night & Yuki, the Deck Cat, curled up with me and we had ourselves a backyard camp-out. I got through about half of the book, but I'm trying to stretch it out, to savor it, since it is the last. Without giving anything away, at this point things are looking a bit bleak for our Boy Wizard. I can't wait to find out how it ends, but I know I will be sad when I read that last page. Great adventures ending always leave me a little verklempt.

It's Ripe

I spied our first ripe cherry tomato this morning. I offered it to Little Turtle and she came out and said, "Aw, it's tiny!" She was expecting one of the big tomatoes to be ripe, but they're still in the green and growing phase. I left the cherry tomato there, as it looks like it could get just a bit riper. I hope some fiendish squirrel doesn't get it before I get to pick & eat it. That would make me very, very angry. I would have to take up my squirrel water torture again. Now that the moss is firmly established, they have done a lot less digging in it, so I have been lenient with them for the most part. But I am still watching, you little buggers.

We also have some sunflowers just starting to bloom, see? Luckily, these are turning out to be sunflowers of the petite variety, unlike the monster 12 foot tall ones I grew in a house with a big backyard many moons ago. I don't think giant sunflowers would fit on our little back deck. So, I suppose I chose these seeds wisely.

A flower!

We planted a bunch of bulbs during the early phases of Two Turtles Garden, very few of which actually came out of the ground at all. I blame the squirrels for that. I forget what we put where, and will have to defer to Doodle's vast horticultural geeniyus on what this one is*, but it finally bloomed! Shiny!

Everything else is doing quite well, though it is getting a bit inconvenient to water with the watering can out back, since my outdoor water fixture decided to burst last winter (never even used it, didn't even know it was turned on until it flooded my shed. Oops. Learned my lesson to check the shut off valves when it gets cold.) Hopefully my dear brother or my handy neighbor will come over some day and help me fix it. *wink wink nudge nudge* My tomato plants are quite the water hogs, but it will be worth it when all those little green tomatoes turn red & yummy. I shall sit under them with a book in my lap and pick them straight off the vine & pop them into my mouth. Yummy!

Back to work, but I will leave you with a picture of Myrtle & Petunia masquerading rather successfully as a pair of shoes.


* I freely admit that bulb knowledge is not my strong spot in plant identification.

Aww, you shouldn't have!

Yuki brought us a present this morning, in the form of a dead mole on the doormat. Ewww! I suppose I should be grateful that it was not a half of a mole. Little Turtle was rather fascinated by it; she stroked & prodded it gently with a stick. She named it George (as in "IwilllovehimandhughimandsqueezehimandcallhimGeorge"). She wanted to have a funeral for him. Now, I like critters, and have even had triple-wrapped cryogenic hamsters in the freezer, but I draw the line at pets. I picked it up with a big wad of paper towels, said "Goodbye George, it was like we hardly knew you! RIP!" and flung it out into the woods. Amen.

I did not take pictures. Heh.

Mary, Mary quite contrary...

...how does your garden grow? It grows like crazy, is how! Here you see Little Turtle and I admiring our 10 foot tall cherry tomatoes. (Might be a bit hard to see the tomato plants in the picture with all the greenery in the background) They're growing lots of little tomatoes now too, just got to get ripe. By the time they are, I imagine I will be able to pick them from my upstairs bedroom window, might have to if they keep growing the way they have been. I've also been picking string beans a few at a time & might soon have enough for a modest side dish, heh.



We had a birthday party in Two Turtles Garden this weekend for Doodle. I do believe she had a lovely time, I know we did! Here is what's left of Hello Kitty after the ritual slaughter. We made it a night of pizza, Kitty Cake, and watched "I Love Lucy" episodes, including my all time favorite Vitameatavegemin. Little Turtle got the whole spiel down by the end of the episode, hehe. We also had goody bags.

Myrtle and Petunia

Petunia

Doodle came over with her far superior camera and took some pictures for us. In our excitement to take pictures of the kittens, we completely forgot to take some of the garden. Oops! Since the kitten's names are plant-related, I still think they fit in my garden blog. Promise I will take some garden pictures soon. My 10 foot tall tomato plants are a sight to behold! Little Turtle is in kitten heaven, by the way. She is also impressed with how much everything grew while she was away. That's my little garden geek.

Myrtle

And we have kittens!

My camera is teh suck, but I think kitteny cuteness transcends that. I was going to surprise Little Turtle, but I got all excited and spilled the beans last night. She is going to luuuuuuve teh kittens.

Critters that we like

We let our guinea pigs out in the garden recently, at first making sure to keep very close to them in case they decided to make a run for it, but they found the gardeny edibles far to irresistable to do more than waddle into the fairy garden and munch a path through the violets. Here is piggie Tohru modeling the hat designed by Little Turtle. She turned to the other piggie and said, "Do you like my hat?" to which Kisa replied, *nibble nibble* "Why yes, I do like your hat! It is very tasty!" They had a very nice jaunt (well, that is too energetic a word for our fat piggies; ramble would be more appropriate) in the faerie garden and I think they nibbled on several faeries in an attempt to persuade them to move out.

Yuki, the deck cat, has found a new perch in Beaker the Mexican Feather Grass. I'm not sure Beaker likes to be squeezed to the front of his planter. I'm certain Yuki would be perturbed if I decided to water Beaker whilst she was napping there. I hope Beaker can survive the weight of Yuki's butt! (Little Turtle likes to call her 'Tubby Tooks')

In any case, these sorts of critter encounters in the garden are far superior to the damn squirrels.

I'm in UR plantz, makin' silly facez

We do not welcome our Evil Squirrel Overlords

*

Yuki surprised me greatly this morning by catching or at least pouncing on and tormeting some little critter outside the back garden this morning. I didn't see what it was but I heard it making some distressed-little-animal noises out there for quite a while. She came back looking very pleased with herself, indeed. She has become quite the Deck Cat. She likes to sit under the 'karma chair'. ** I like to sit in the karma chair and read which entices Yuki to sit on me and purr, lick me and otherwise seek love and attention. And cover me with cat fur.

I also like to sit in the chair and look at the plants growing on the deck & see how they've grown. I found a tiny tomato the other day! We have a tomato, woot! The beans are starting to flower as well, so we might just get some of those too. Most everything is growing rather well, I must say. I do have some annuals up front that are being stubborn about producing anything resembling a flower, but they aren't turning brown and shriveling up either, so I guess that's something. Not everything needs to be all flowery and stuff.

Here's a before/after look at my beans. Amazing what happens over a few weeks, with some water, TLC & some music (yes, I play music for my plants. Their current favorite is "Here comes the sun").

*I believe this to be footage of the woodchuck/groundhog who may actually be the Head Overlord, but he's letting the squirrels run the show.

** The karma chair was a freecycle find from the Lake Anne area. Karma lives at the Stairs to Nowhere.

Thank you Bean

Two Turtles Garden is a sad place today. Yesterday, our sweet little kitty, Valentina aka Bean went to where cats dream. We got to say goodbye to her and thank her for being part of our family. She has been sick for a while and we were doing all we could to help her get better, but it was not meant to be. A friend told me that sometimes God only gives us a pet for a short while because there are so many others out there who need loving homes.

We will miss your daily morning 'lovies', what a great way to wake up Little Turtle they were. We will miss your lap warming abilities, reading in the evening was so much nicer with a fuzzy, purring companion to stroke. We will miss your bread thieving abilities, never knew kitties would be bread lovers. We will miss your pretty green eyes and making you look like a little alien ("take me to your litter box!")

Dream well, sweet Beana, Bean Bean, Baby Beanz, Tina Beans, Bee-Bean, Valentina. We love you. We will never forget the love you gave us.

Crafty

Here is the result of this past weekend's adventures in craftiness. This was actually the second iteration of the Mosaic House Number Plaque, as the first attempt got stepped on 'accidentally' before it was dry by Little Turtle and it cracked. The original was made with bright primary colored glass chips with a sandy beige grout. I actually prefer the color scheme of the one that survived in relation to our patio theme, plus the first was good practice as I've never done mosaics before. So, Little Turtle did me a favor, ultimately, with her penchant for occasional clumsiness. We also mosaic-ed a terra cotta pot, which I have yet to put the finishing touches on. All of this is gearing up for the big project, the Two Turtles Garden stepping stone, which I have drawn a doodle of, but will defer to Little Turtles vastly superior artistic skills to draw up our final paper version.

I did not see Todius Caesar this morning, but it might have been because I was running around doing the typical morning getting ready things. We did however find evidence of faerie activity in the garden. I'm glad we thought to put a path in for them to use.

Close Encounters of the Toady Kind

As I had expected, Mr. Toad came along this morning on his regular rounds of Two Turtles Garden. Little Turtle eagerly hopped out of bed (amazing!!) when I roused her with the opportunity to kiss a toad. Out she goes into the garden in her nightie and we examined the toad at length. This is what we learned:

• When you touch a toad on the head, he will blink
• Toads are not wet or slimy, they are quite dry, bumpy on top and soft on the sides & belly
• Toads are cute when they walk
• When toads are comfy, they stretch their legs out all aspraddle behind them
• This toad likes the Faery Garden

All of this was observed without any picking up of, squeezing, prodding (well, not too much) or otherwise annoying the toad. At least, he didn't seem to be annoyed; he didn't hop away into the neighbor's yard. I was quite impressed by Little Turtle's restraint. She did finally kiss the toad, which she dubbed 'Toadius Caesar' (I LOL'd) and sang him an impromptu little ditty along the lines of "You are my sunshine". We are going to make him a toad abode out of a terra cotta pot & inscribe his name above the door. Toadius Caesar, indeed.

It was quite the amusing way to start the day.

Critters and Crafts and Electricity, oh my!

A toad, "Toady" has moved into the faerie garden. He's made a little trek from said garden across the moss and into the azaleas next door each morning (coffee time seems like when all the critters are busy) for the last few days. Little Turtle slept in, being a holiday weekend, so she missed seeing him, but her comment was "Aw, I didn't even get to kiss him!" Little Turtle is apparently getting an early start on the old adage that you must kiss alot of toads before you find your prince. They start 'em young these days, *sigh!*

I mentioned the chipmunk vaccuum cleaners earlier. Well, let me tell you, they are making themselves at home. I was regaling my dad with stories of my War with Squirrels and one was busy cleaning up spilled seed, oblivious to me yakking away just feet from it. Next thing I knew it was creeping along the wood border and paused about 6 inches from my foot. All I could think was that old Chip wasn't as cute and benevolent as I had made him out to be, and that he was about to bite me on the ankle in a retaliatory maneuver on behalf of his cousin the squirrel I have been blasting regularly with the jet setting on my hose.

Other than watering and tending to my plantses, no new additions of the floral variety came to Two Turtles Garden this weekend. Instead, time was devoted to projects of crafty and home improvementy natures. I have had a new light fixture for beside my door very helpfully sitting in my hall closet for approximately a year. I decided it was time to actually put it up. After consulting with my handy-dandy brother to confirm that I understood the installation instructions and to ensure I would not electrocute myself or catch my house on fire, I located the circuit breaker, flipped it off and proceeded to set about hanging that baby up. After removing the old fixture, I realized that the new one would not cover the mismatch of paint shades resulting from weathering on the exposed area vs. being covered up by the base of the light.

Out I go to the back shed, drag out the paint, a roller and a brush to touch it up. Then, inspiration struck. If I was going to touch up one spot, I might as well paint the whole thing. The benefit of living in a very small abode is that you can paint the entire front of it in 30 minutes or less, just like Dominoes used to promise. Of course, I lacked the accompanying trim paint, so that looks decidedly more shabby now in comparison to the freshly painted wall. That'll be a project for another weekend, I suppose.

Back to the light-fixture-hanging. It went smoothly, it looks ever so much better than the old one (and surprise, surprise!) it works. Who knew I could mess with electrical thingys?! Now, I want to put some more up, heh.

Lastly, I will leave you with a look at Two Turtles Garden in The Gloaming, my very favorite time of day.

Good thing she's pretty

So, this is my little Yuki (OK, she's not that little). Isn't she a pretty girl? It's a good thing, because, heavens to murgatroid, she's just not that bright. This is the kitty who managed to get herself stuck in the ceiling vents a la ceiling cat the very first day we moved in to Chez Turtle. This is the cat who does somersaults around my floating stairs (on the upper set, so she's a good 8 feet off the ground) with no regard for the poor, high strung guinea pigs who live below and go into apoplexy when she crashes down onto their cages.

I was sitting & enjoying my coffee the other morning with Ms. Thing sitting at my feet, when a dreaded squirrel crept down the tree trunk and hung, chattering evilly at me. It caught sight of Yuki and stopped dead in its tracks then literally levitated itself back up into the tree, clinging by those little rear feet and trying not to move any unneccessary muscles. Yuki never did notice the squirrel, but he didn't know that. heh

I am soon going to have to Do Something more permanent to whatever nasty little fleabag dug a hole (going to China perhaps?) all the way under one of my stepping stones. They're sunk at least 2 inches in the ground. Come on, you did not bury any acorns there. I promise. Now, get off my lawn!!


Dear little Yuki... we love you anyway!

Looky, I got slides! Hey, where are you going?

Hey, at least I'm not trying to show you my vacation pictures. Here's me n' Myrtle posing with some statue thingy...

Just call me Marty Stauffer

My front garden is turning into Wild-freakin-kingdom. My morning ritual has been to sit out in the garden with my cup of coffee, inspecting the flora to see how it's growing and changing. I suppose I sit rather still because all of the little critters don't seem to mind my presence as they flock, scurry or slink (in the evil squirrel's cases) to see what's new to nibble. I have bluejays, cardinals and all manner of little songbirds who perch nearby before swooping in to get their breakfast from the birdfeeder. I have a little chipmunk who does a great job of cleaning up the seed the birds (and damn squirrels!) knock out of the feeder. He comes in and stuffs his little cheeks full, doing a decent impression of a hoover vaccuum in the process. I startled him a bit this morning and he ran and perched on the nearby frog-sitting-on-turtle's head, it was uber-cute but I didn't have my camera handy to snap a pic. I think I will have to keep my camera on hand for some critter action shot opportunities. I also think I will pick up a birding field guide so I can start to learn the names of my feathered visitors.

The other rather unexpected "wildlife" visitation started out as a bit of a mystery. I planted some catnip in an unfortunate spot for the health of the catnip; right by the sidewalk. Not surprisingly, it got chowed on the very day I put it in. It's like a kitty cat buffet. I have seen every cat in the neighborhood( and some I've never seen before) stroll by, do a doubletake as they catch the scent, then make a beeline right for the remains of the plant, which is fighting gamely to keep it's little head up, even if it is getting pruned regularly by the feline conniasseurs. The mystery is this: as I've been tending my plantses, I noticed that the little metal plant marker which labels it 'catnip (nepeta cataria)' kept getting pushed down into the mulch. Well, this weekend, my neighbor's cat, Kitten (so not a kitten anymore btw) does the kitty head swivel and starts sniffing and munching my Nip. Next thing I know she is rolling and rubbing on the plant marker. Mystery solved. I chuckled.

I also nipped my own kitty, Yuki, who has always been more of an afficianado of this treat than my other cat. She rolls and leaps and zooms around, much to our amusement. Bean, our other cat affects an aloof air at her sister's antics, she can't be bothered to stoop to such kittenish behavior. Currently, this is most likely due to her being quite ill, but she has never really had the taste for the Nip.

Amazing what a lick of paint can do eh, Grommit?

The other major project for the weekend did not involve digging in the dirt but it was lots of fun too. A while back I passed an antique store which had a little cluster of cool retro lawnchairs in the perfect shade of turquoise (remember those tacky flamingo plates?) The chairs were similar to this one but in a way cooler color, no they were cooler looking even than this one. I coveted them immediately. However, being an antique store I didn't even stop to see how much they were, since they were probably out of my price range. Instead I struck upon the idea of painting my el cheapo resin chairs that very cool color. For only the cost of a can of spraypaint (OK, 2 cans, yeah I ran out before I could finish the undersides of the chairs) I could at least continue the color theme that I've struck upon for my patio.

So being that I tend to take a creative idea and run with it in all directions, I had a spraypaint fest. I painted a cheap plastic wall planter said cool color as well and filled it with flamingo pink geraniums. Too stinkin' cool! I painted a little hanging planter with "sage" stencilled into it and filled it with sage (duh.) I painted my ugly mailbox. I accidentally painted my deck a bit too where the drop cloth didn't cover. Oops. Oh well, no biggie. It all looks so purty now, no?

In the back garden, the news is that my beans (both string & turtle) are popping up and the daikon radish and bok choy are sprouting too. The damn squirrels had their way with the bulbs I planted and dug in the other pots too, so I liberally sprinkled cayenne & crushed red pepper in all of the pots. Stings the eyes don't it, boys?

I also drove directly at a squirrel yesterday who was in the road playing chicken. I could have gotten him if I had veered to the right just a bit as he scuttled away like the lily-livered varmint he was, but I decided to be merciful. It wasn't in my neighborhood, so I doubt that particular squirrel has done me any personal affronts. Then again, you never know. I did manage to blast one of the ones that has wreaked havoc in Two Turtles Garden with a high-powered jet of icy cold water, heh. Should have seen him take off up the neighbor's tree. I don't like the way he looked at me from his perch up on high though. He was thinking evil thoughts.

This weekend should be filled with fun of the stepping stone creating variety. We are planning on making the first step into the garden a stone with, what else, two turtles on it. Mosaic-y goodness will surely ensue. Also need to track town the motherlode of moss to finish the carpet.


*I will be printing & laminating this little gem of the photoshop persuasion and sticking it out in the garden. I think I will also send it to Drew at FARK.

Branching out

I got a little crazy this weekend and decided to take a stab at the back deck plans by *gasp* planting with seeds! Other than another moss-hunting expedition to finish up my carpet in the front garden, that portion is pretty much looking good to go, so I turned my attention to the deck and container gardeny goodness. I like the cost factor of buying seeds instead of plantses, but I had this philosophy that it would be Too Hard to grow those little buggers. Plus, I am a fan of instant gratification.

However, I'm encouraged by the results I'm seeing in the front garden as item after item has just popped out in bloom and gotten so much bigger since arriving at Chez Turtle. My Jacob's Ladder has at least doubled and is starting to bloom.

One of the sedum (sedums? sedii?) has lazily sprawled in it's bed and needed to be staked and tied. The astilbe and meadow sage are rubbing elbows and competing for attention with their colorful shows.

The bulbs are coming up! The faeries are going to have to move house sooner or later when those babies take off.

This fuschia is just about ready to pop with tons of blossoms (I hope frogs don't like fuschia blossoms).

So, encouraged that I don't have an absolutely black thumb, I decided some flowers and veggies from seed would make great container-gardening subjects.

Like I said, seeds are cheap, since it requires more effort on the part of the gardener and less on the seed company vs. plant grower. Even better than the cheap seeds are the free containers that Doodle supplied me with that the garden center uses to pot up plants. They're ugly, but hey, I like free. I'm sure I will end up thinking up a way of asthetically improving them, just give me time. We've got bok choi, leeks & scallions, black turtle beans (I didn't just get them because they're turtle beans, I swear! They are my favorite type of beans), pole climbing string beans and daikon radish (I have no idea what you do with these on a culinary level, but I just knew our garden needed to have a Radish Spirit in it). I also planted in some freecycle find containers some flowering vines, some sunflowers and some bulbs. This should make my little bench quite an enjoyable place to sit once they take off, that is if I don't end up going overboard with planting seeds and fill up all the space with containers.

An update on the squirrel situation: I have not managed to run any of the little buggers over yet (though I have veered in their direction a few times and I deliberately made tire contact with a dead one) but family victory in the name of squirrel eradication has occurred. After chasing some squirrels away from bulbs he just planted, my dad couldn't take their mockery from half-way up a tree, so he went & got his shotgun and took them both out with one shot! As I live in suburbia, this is not an option for me, unless I want a visit from the police and traumatized neighborhood children. Go Dad! Take one out for me!

The faeries apparently have squirrel issues in their garden too:

This means war!!

Man the battle stations, there are invaders in Two Turtles Garden of the four-legged variety! Ever since the first act of raking up the leaves, the damn squirrels have been digging heyooge (not just huge) holes in my garden. It annoyed me when it was in the flower beds. It irked me when it was hanging off of the bird feeder, spreading seedy messiness about. It ticked me off when it was in the violetty loveliness of the faerie garden. It peeved me when it was amongst the vinca and bulbs I am so patiently waiting to see sprout. The absolute last straw is them taking divots out of my carefully hand-pieced moss carpet.

All out warfare has commenced. I googled til I could google no more for tips on keeping squirrels from digging up your garden.

• Used kitty litter (for the predatorial foe aroma) Check!
  
• Let the cats out (same deal) Check!
• Pepper (Achooo!) Check!
• Crushed Red Pepper (AAARGH! MY EYES!) Check!*
• Laying in wait with my hose to blast them if they even glance in the vicinity of my garden. Check!
• Running them over with the car. Pondering that one, seriously.

I am thinking about installing a squirrel feeder elsewhere in my neighborhood so they will go sit on the damn cute little wooden chair and eat the little corncob off the table, strictly for my neighbor's enjoyment, of course. I can't stand the little fleabags, cute my foot! Now, get off my lawn!! Actually, in looking for a picture of the cute little table & chair feeder, I found a much, much better one, which I would rig to actually snap shut on the adowable wittle freaks.

* I'm sure this one will have the local chapter of PETA picketing at my garden for animal cruelty. Look, I like furry critters, but these little bastards have gone too far.

True nirvana for the fledgling gardener

Doodle has the best job ever. She works at a kickin' garden center where Little Turtle and I just absolutely couldn't contain ourselves, flitting here and there like butterflies taking in all that cool gardeny stuff. Plants! Pots! Trees! Rocks! Roses! Shrubs! Herbs! Garden Pretties! It was amazing. The sheer variety was almost more than I could bear.

One of my favorite finds was this tipsy cauldron, courtesy of a broken leg, which allows it to sit all askew in the most charming manner. All their pots were highly discounted anyway, so I got this "broken" one for next to nothing. I personally like it exactly as it is, with the aquarium rock gravel creating an inviting pool for our little mascots. I can't decide if the Two Turtles are climbing in for a swim or escaping their 'pond' to explore their garden. Either way, Juniper seems to like their company. I think she was lonely in her rocky bed all alone.

So we had fun soaking up all of the gardeny eye candy at the nursery, got some low growing "stepable" herbs to add some good smelling variety to the moss carpet and some cherry tomatoes for our back deck (which will so be the scene of my next horticultural endeavor when Two Turtles Garden is complete... though with gardens, complete is a relative term, happily.)

The deck has 0% planting space, as it is literally a deck with a fence all the way around, so all plantses will have to be of the container loving variety. We've currently got a strawberry pot, a big planter with herbs, a bush blueberry that came back from last year, much to my surprise, and a Mexican feather grass (named "Beaker") out back. Other than adding the cherry tomatoes, I haven't thought too deeply about other ideas for out there, but I'm actively collecting planters and containers and things from freecycle, so I'm sure creativity will be sparkable when I'm ready to get to work out there.

Planting Rocks!

As I have decided the center area around Grendel was going to be more or less plantless I decided I needed some stepping stones. Freecycle came through on that account, and handily enough from a neighbor right around the corner from me. I did need to go dig twelve large, poured concrete stone fascimiles out of their back yard (those suckers were heavy!) but I also got 6 round pavers thrown into the bargain. No idea what I was going to do with them, but I lugged those suckers home too, figuring some use would occur to me, or that I could always freecycle them again. So Grendel has a cute little path circling her now. They were just sitting in the dirt though, which wasn't going to work in the long run; my yard tends to turn into a miniature pond when it rains hard.

Not wanting to deal with upkeep on a teeny tiny grass lawn we opted for moss. I had asked Little Turtle if she'd seen any moss in her ramblings about the woods that surround our townhouses & she promptly set off with a little bucket/watering pitcher & a trowel and brought it back, full of moss. Oooh, moss! She said there was more, so we set out together to bring it back to carpet around the stone path. Turns out it was not technically in the woods; it was in the side yard of the end townhouse. Err, oops. The debris & detritus in that area led me to believe that they never went around the side of their house anyway, plus moss grows right? So, we made several trips and brought all we could find there back. We will need to take a walk in the actual woods (bike paths here rock, should make for easy access to mossy goodness) to find some more to finish up, but I was impressed by how much the first haul supplied to our moss-lawn.

Up by my house I have planters and other pots along with a little tree shaped table & 2 chairs, hereby allowing a nice, relaxing spot from which to watch the garden grow, drink morning coffee, an evening glass of wine and so forth. The problem is, it's dirt and my spigot/hose drip into the dirt and create mud. My table and chairs were slowly settling into the mud making this a not so nice, relaxing place, but rather a place to perch precariously, hoping to avoid too much more sinkage. So I've been thinking for the week following what to do about this. Options that I came up with were to pour cement there, making it a little patio (which I don't even begin to pretend to know how to do), get some paving slabs at Homey D's (looked, didn't really like the options in my price range), gravelly rocks (eh, not very exciting) or fashioning something of my own design. Being the crafty person that I am, which do you think ended up coming to pass? Yep, I had a New Project. Woot.

I spent some time poking around on Craftster's Gardeny Forums for ideas for my future patio. The cooliest cool idea I read involved making stepping stones with lucite, hot pink (ooooh, flamingoey!) aquarium gravel and a springform pan. I do own a springform pan, but I tend to think that making paving stones with it will render it unfit for kitchen use. Plus, I'm not sure I can easily get my hands on lucite, as cool as that sounds to me. I opted to go beg a dozen pizza boxes from of Papa John's to use as my molds, use cement in place of lucite and purchased vastly too many bags of lovely aquarium gravel (which are sliding around in my trunk now, waiting for me to return them to the pet store). In trying to calculate the number of pizza boxes based on my patio dimensions, Little Turtle proved to be far more observant than I; as I was measuring the boxes with my tape measure & scribbling calculations, she sagely pointed out, "Big Turtle, the size of the box is written on the side, you know." Smarty pants.

When you are mixing cement in a utility bucket, you get approximately enough mixed cement for one stone. I ended up only needing to make 10 paving stones, but of course assumed that they would take no time at all to make. Well, no. I ended up playing hookie from work on monday to finish this little endeavor, because there was no damn way I was going to be patient enough to wait until the following weekend to sit on the patio currently residing in my imagination. Don't worry, I have oodles of vacation time that has sat unused, patiently waiting for me to squander them, plus I didn't have anything pressing at work that day, and I deserve a "me day" every once in a while. So, yeah.

I definitely worked up a system with making these stones and was far more efficient at getting the cement the perfect consistency by stone number 7 or so. I also got to the point where I could eyeball exactly the right amount of cement for one stone, not to little, not too much. I have some serious paving stone making skillz now, nearly rivaling my google-fu skillz. I waited patiently for the cement to cure until Tuesday night to put my stones in, wouldn't want to sit down and crack a stone & end up sitting in the mud, now would we? Patience paid off, as I have not yet had any mud related issues on my patio.

Those flamingo plates (turquoise background, which inspired the selection of the particular aquarium rock colors I used) were a stroke of genius I believe. I already have plans for continuing the theme this weekend. Stay tuned, dear readers.

Soil quality seriously lacking

It turns out I do have a before picture of sorts after all. I cropped out the subject of the picture, The Boy aka Smoochie (isn't that just the most annoying nickname I could have come up with, heh.) This was my yard last summer. Isn't it ghastly? I made a meager attempt to plant a few things, but never really had a vision of what I wanted the garden to look like, nor did I make much effort to encourage said plantings to grow, so alot of them (ahem!) perished due to my negligence. Nice weeds though, no? Plus I think that dead limb gives it a certain je ne sais quoi. This year however, I did start to formulate a vision of what I wanted to do. The basic structure has stayed intact, but the garden is evolving on it's own as one idea leads to another before I have even gotten to the implementation of the first idea. So far, each successive idea has seemed like an even better one than the last, so woo, go garden!

I'm going to have to give the readers digest condensed version of my gardeny beginnings if I want to get up to current events at some point. Gardens don't stop growing to wait for you to blog, after all.

So, Sunday dawns, as lovely as the day before and I set out to put my plants in their respective places. First, I had to trek to get the soil & mulch at Home Dump (or Home Despot, as my friend & horticultural geeniyus, Doodle calls it). We couldn't resist combing through their meager selection of perrennials & herbs for some other goodies while we heely'd around the store (yes, Turtles on wheels, we're quite the sight as we both fly recklessly through the store, me aided by the shopping cart cum training wheels). We also got some strawberries for our strawberry pot, hoping to get actual berries this year.

So planting time is nigh. The short version is that it took me all day to get a dozen or so plantlings into the ground, fighting through Grendel's roots, rocks, clay and other archeological artifacts of residents past. Phew, I was a grubby sweaty mess by the end of that adventure. But by this point, my little rectangular planting boxes are not looking so forlorn any more. I end the weekend feeling accomplished and pleased at a job well done.

The following weekend found me in the garden again with my friend (& horticultural geeniyus, remember?) putting in some pretties she dug up from her own garden. We were all too happy to play in the dirt most of the weekend, though a trip to Target for a hose found us in the "dollar store" section where we found some ticky tacky melamine plates which brought to mind the ubiquitous lawn flamingo which spurred it's own design trend of which I will tell you in an upcoming entry.

Too bad there's no 'Before' pic

I'd say we're in phase 3 of renovation of Two Turtles Garden. It all started about a month back, the first warm weekend we've had. I decided to dig out the rake & clean up the blanket of oak leaves in my little square patch of dirt (with a tree that really deserves more room, it's got to be about my age considering the vintage of my little house; about my age, which is thirty somethin'.)

So armed with rake and a stack of yard bags (which I had to actually insert myself into to reach the bottom to open them up... I'm sure that was amusing for the neighbors. Dang! What's that nutty lady who lives over there doing now?!) I spent several hours defoliating my plot. Not only did I rake the leaves, I weeded and painstakingly extracted the few plants I wanted to keep (several liriopes that were a legacy of some former owner, some violets that grow under my tree, a few struggling plants I put in last year; vincas, a stunted lavendar [note to self: watering helps this] and a scraggly little sedum).

Next stop, one of those little temporary gardeny-center places that sprout like so many weeds in the parking lots of strip malls everywhere (OK, at least around here they do, I can't vouch for the garden center habits of say, Hokkaido.) We get the guy to point us in the direction of the perrennials. (Why do people go out every year and buy a flat of boring, monotone annuals and plunk them down in their flower beds the same damn place they put the same damn plants last year? That kind of makes me sad for them.)

My garden is trying very hard to be shady, what with the tree presiding over it. I call her Grendel, and yes I know Grendel was not a she. My tree is a she and she's a Grendel. She's my tree; I pay the mortgage, I can call her George W. Bush if I want. But I wouldn't do that to her; I like her and I think she is more intelligent than the aforementioned shrubbery. Anyway, back to shady. For some reason these strip mall gardeny places (and places like Home Dump, for that matter) seem to think that we all live in houses ever-lit by full noon sun without anything resembling flora of the arboreal kind. Maybe in some strange sci-fi future, or when global warming has deforested the planet, but not today, Mr. Weasley. (I try to channel Dame Maggie whenever I say this... Little Turtle is typically not amused, as she is not a fan of hearing the no.) Oh yeah, I was discussing shade.

So, very few plants at this stripmallgardenythingy like the shade. I settled for primarily ones in the variety of full sun to part shade, reasoning that all of my yard gets sun at some point during the day, but I also took a risk & went with some just plain full sun plants too. And one shrub, Juniper, who I put in a shady corner, dammit. She's my juniper, Juniper, and I'll put her where I want, shade be damned. If she stays miniature, I will tell people she's a bonsai and I did it on purpose.

So, home we go with our little batch of perrennials, plus a few annuals such as some highly cheerful Gerber daisies, celosia and some (yawn) marigolds that Little Turtle (LT whenever I'm feeling too lazy to type it out) picked out to fill some planter boxes that have been home to a succession of wolf spiders in my back yard since I moved in. No more will I doubt LT's eye for flowers. They look smashing together, inclusive of the marigolds. See?

So, we bring our little treasures home and I start setting them in likely looking places, meandering around with my glass of red wine (it's cocktail hour by now and I worked damn hard raking and whatnot) shifting my little plantses around. Call it Turtle Feng Shui, if you will.

Being extremely grubby from my day of garden prep, I decide to wait until the next day to settle these babies into their new homes. Plus, I know I will need to take a trip to Home Dump for some good garden soil & mulch first, so they can get to know their new neighbors from their containers until tomorrow (I went with mostly singles of each type of plant I selected, so their neighbors would not have been housed in the same holding pen at the gardeny place, hence new neighbors). It's cocktail hour and I know for a fact plantses like to kibitz at this time of day, so they should be OK with that. Plus, being cocktail hour I'm in no mood to face the morass of Home Dump or all the suburbanites grabbing up their annual quota of pansies and impatiens (bleh). Let's let the sun go down on Two Turtles Garden for now.

Stay tuned for the saga of planting. It's a gripping, cliffhanger of a tale.