soaphouse's Blog

Moving the Mulch and Such...
Jan 31, 2009 | 4:43 AM PST
Tags: mulch , grasses , prune , clematis , weed eater , weedeater , creek

Last week I had what seems to be the largest pile of mulch in the history of gardening delivered to my yard! We are so lucky that we can get this free from the city:

Of course, my girl had a great time climbing the "mountain" as I set out to spread it on the side yard.

I did get a good bit done. This is where my hubby parks his truck and every winter, I spread a fresh layer. I have also been working on the usual winter clean up in preparation for spring. I had a lovely clematis armandii and wisteria growing on the side of the house. Well, the clematis had turned all crispy, which its not supposed to do since it is an evergreen. Well, it looked terrible, so Hubby helped me cut it way back to the base. Will be interesting to see if it comes back...I have my doubts.

Here is what it looked like in its glory, before turning brown:

And now, after the BIG prune :

Bummer! At least the fig tree will leaf out in spring to cover the ugly gas line.

Also, a few weeks back my trusty weedeater died! UGH! So, while hubby and I were at Home Depot pricing a new one (quite expensive actually), A stranger walked by and said he had a used one that we could buy for $10. So, we took him up on it and after a bit of tinkering, hubby got it working and cut back the grasses for me!

>HOORAY! Its a big job. We do have a lot of those grasses. I will divide the larger clumps and put some back by the creek before spring.

He did say it is a bit finicky, but it should hold us over for the time being :)

My little one had fun using her new camera to take pictures of daddy too:

Today the goal is to clean up the grasses from their hair cut and move more mulch.

Happy gardening!

Creek Progress
Jul 27, 2007 | 4:39 PM PST
Tags: creek , clean up , vines , progress , hammock , grasses

FishinBC asked for some recent picts of the creek and how its going. so here its is...i am slowly chipping away at this a little every day and have big dreams for what it can become!

Here is how it started:

That picture was taken after i pulled all the vines off the fence.

Here is the same angle taken today:

You can see progress has been made, but I still have a ways to go! I have uncovered the creek...here are more shots:

 

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I know for sure that in the fall , I am going to divide some of my ornamental grasses and plant them in front of the chain link to cover that a bit. Then I will put in some weeping willows on the creek banks to help with erosion. I will also put in some hardware so that a hammock can be hung. This is such a big project, but little by little, its coming along :) 

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