Not a sand pile in sight!

When we started our shoreline project last April at The House of Goodwill, we never imagined it would take a whole year to complete.  And it's still not complete.  But it's ALMOST complete, and wow, am I excited!  I was starting to think it would never get finished.

Why did it take so long?  Well, it was on track initially to be finished in less than three months.  Our contractor dug out a part of our previous shoreline for a beach, and another part for an eventual floating boat house.  Then he installed panels about 10' deep to make an actual shoreline wall.

It was almost done.  And it was wonderful.  Until...there was a weekend with tons of rain, which caused the sloped backyard to become engorged, and without sufficient drainage, the pressure of the earth broke the new seawall.  A whole new plan had to be created to fix the problem.

Then our contractor started having serious health problems.  And then, well, I really can't say why it took as long as it did...but it did.

Finally, in March, our contractor was back in action.  And the shoreline should be complete next week.  (At double its initial cost.)

Meanwhile, we have to head out of town for a little while, so we won't be here to see it.  But we spent the last three days at The House of Goodwill, and it looked so much better.

Here is a reminder of the state of the shoreline project last June:

We had piles of dirt, sand and rocks in the yard forever...

Looking toward the "beach house" that came with our house.

Here's the site of our future beach.

And here is the result of the pressure of the wet terrain pushing against the wall.  Before the weekend of rain, this wall was a straight line!

Here is how it looked one month ago:

Here's the future beach, again.

Here is the previous bowed wall, put back together.

After I took this pic, a second wall was installed in front of the first; they are a few feet apart.  

This earlier wall was reinforced, more drainage was added, and then our contractor built a wooden walkway covering the two seawalls.

So here's the current state of the project, one week from completion:

Looking from our neighbor's yard, our shoreline is the section of land between the two boathouses (belonging to neighbors) in the pic.

No more piles of dirt!

Here is the area cut out for a future floating boathouse.

You can see the wooden walkway along the back wall that our contractor built to cover the two seawalls.

We finally have a beach!  No more giant sand piles in the yard!

(The neighborhood dogs are going to miss playing in them, I'm sure.)

We had two 80 degree days in a row (it's mid-April), so we had to try the beach out!

We put a couple of chairs in the sand, set up an umbrella, got the radio and a couple of drinks and sat with our toes in the sand for hours.

It was exactly as I hoped it would be.

This area is between the dock area and the beach.  We were initially going to leave it as grass, but my husband had the brilliant idea of creating a patio there.  "The yard's already torn up - might as well do it now," was his convincing argument.

The area with the pressed stone will be a slate patio, with three holes in the center for umbrella poles.

This is where I'll be having morning coffee next month!

I've never been able to sit down by the water in the morning; there was too much sun, there were too many bugs in the grass.  

The wildlife watching in the morning is just beautiful.

The land directly across the lake is state park land.

We are really almost there.  Wow!  We're having sod installed in the lower half of the shoreline, so it will be nice and usable for summer.

But the whole yard is torn up to some degree, and that will take a while to get back to normal.

But when we bought the house, the shoreline was almost unusable.  It was all hard-grassy, but it was wildly uneven, marshy, buggy and kept in place by disintegrating railroad ties.  It was a challenge getting in a kayak from the broken down ties, and when you set your foot in the water it sunk about a foot into mud.  We always kept our jet skis tied up at our neighbor's dock.

Now we can slide the kayak and paddleboard in the water directly from the beach.  And we can tie the jetskis to our sea wall.

The hard part?  Now that we'll finally have the shoreline in order, we'll have to leave.  Renting the house will help pay the shoreline project off.

That's the problem with a great rental property: when it's really great, you don't want to rent it!

It's finally spring!

Spring is here, and with it's arrival, I'm another year older.  I had a wonderful birthday this year, just resting and being with family.

I want to share a few pics of my birthday flowers, in part because they gave me an opportunity to use two new Hull vases I picked up last year, but hadn't had a chance to use yet.  I love Hull pottery; I found these two vases I really liked for less than what I expected them to go for.  (I don't remember what I paid for each, but it was no more than $25 for either one.)  

Hull is one of several Ohio pottery companies that were popular in the early to mid part of the last century.  (Rookwood, McCoy and Shawnee are some others.)  I've come to love to vintage pottery.

The birthday flowers from my husband were just perfect to spread between my Hull pieces, and I enjoy the vases as much as the flowers!

💕

I love the shape and soft colors of this piece.

 The coloring on this one is really subtle and just beautiful.

This is a nice tall pitcher.

I also got flowers from my son!  I've been surrounded by flowers this week; I just love it!

These gave me an excuse to pull out my vintage Snoopy vase 🙂

Flowers in the spring fill my heart with hope.

And finally, I bought a little birthday present for myself.  I've wanted a bunny planter for years, and I finally found one I loved for only $24.

I'm tempted to put a little stain on him.

But isn't he great?

I know my husband is going to accuse me again of making this a gardening blog.  But vintage pottery isn't gardening....and hey, he gave me the flowers.

Happy spring! ⚘

What a difference a year makes!

I came to The House of Goodwill this week, for the first time since January.  I was sitting outside on the deck when a "memory" showed up on my phone.  It was a photo of the living room from one year ago, and when I saw it, I couldn't believe it.  I had forgotten how much work we did on the house, and so recently.

It was just one year ago that we had the living room mantle made and installed (after trying to find someone who could make it for over a year), and that was the catalyst that spurred us to finish getting the house in order.

Here is the photo that my phone sent me, of one year ago:

What an unorganized mess!

You can see the slab for the soon-to-be-made mantle on the floor in front of the fireplace.

To put this in perspective, here is a photo I took the other night, one year later:

Peaceful!

My fireplace mantle is one of my favorite things about this house.

Yes, we've come a long way in one year!

I got my mantle all set for spring, with a discount candle from TJ Maxx, a bunny from Goodwill and a $2.50 pitcher from an estate sale, with $4 flowers from Wal-Mart.

I

I split the pink flowers between two small vases.

The daffodils on the right are all from the yard; some at home and some here.

I love the mantle lit up at night.

Old stone fireplaces make me so happy!

Here are my daffodils in daylight; I look forward to them every year!

Ever since my neighbor Jeanne gave me a daffodil bouquet for my birthday a few years ago, made with five different daffodils, I've wanted to grow a collection like hers.

I added two new varieties last fall.

This bouquet has four different daffodils.

I just want to share a few; they're so beautiful:

This orangey-pink and white double daffodil is one I planted a few years ago.

Just one single flower by itself is so pretty.

This is my second year with "Golden Echo."

Each stem bears multiple flowers, so it's prolific!

This beautiful white and orange daffodil came with The House of Goodwill.  I love the delicate coloring in the center.

The yard is full of the "ordinary" all-yellow, early blooming variety.

I noticed a few of these later blooming clumps mixed in.

I dug a couple of bulbs of this one to take home and plant.

I love daffodils because they're the first sign of spring, and I love all the different varieties.  The wonderful thing about daffodils is how they naturalize by themselves...one bulb will become a good size clump within just a few years.  Once the foliage dies back in May or June, you don't even know that daffodils are there, till they burst up in early spring.

I've planted single bulbs of different daffodils around the bases of the trees in the front yard at The House of Goodwill.  It won't be long till the trees are ringed with lots of flowers in the spring.

Spring flowers are like sunshine to the soul. 🌞

I had so many questions...

The world is certainly full of unusual people.  I was randomly reminded of this a few weeks ago.  I was passing through Chattanooga and had an opportunity to stop at this really cool thrift store "area" - a large parking lot surrounded by about seven different thrift stores.

I couldn't pass that up!

So, with about an hour to go before all the places closed, I picked the biggest place and started wandering.  And there was all the cool stuff I expected.  But then I saw one of the most random booths I've ever seen.

Remember, I've been to A LOT of thrift stores.  And one of the fun things about the big "malls" is the variety of vendors - sometimes mixed in with the vintage resellers you find interesting artisans.  And this was one interesting artisan.

So, the entire booth consisted of "objets d'art" made from plastic doll parts.  And it was loaded.  Here are a few of the "highlights":

This was a pretty large "art piece."

I wonder where you'd put it?

In an empty chair at your dining table?

Here is a fully functional doll body lamp.  (With no clothes, but a pearl necklace.  What do you think the artist is trying to say here?)

I can't remember if this chandelier was actually functional or just for "style"...

Here were Barbie heads on water bottle caps...I guess you can switch out your boring old bottle cap for something more interesting...

There were also doll head night lights...

And a "special" jar, what you'd store in it, I'm not sure...

And, finally.

there were Barbie head rings, in case you're feeling a little too elegant, and want to take it down a notch.

(Note there were eyeball rings for sale as well.)

I don't often find myself speechless, but this booth left me feeling that way.  I had SO MANY questions.  Who is this doll artist?  And is this meant to be taken tongue-in-cheek, or is this stuff crafted in the dark basement of his parent's house by a lonely guy who also collects knives?

Does the artist wear his/her own Barbie head jewelry?  If so, what are they wearing it with?

What does the artist keep in his/her doll head jars?  (Hopefully not human teeth or toenail pieces.)

This huge part of me would really, really, really love to see the home of this "artist" - I mean, it's got to be a fascinating place, right?  But another part of me wonders if I'd make it out alive.

I like to think I can appreciate quirkiness.  I think I have a sense of humor.

I was still taking it all in when two girls cruised by.  "OMG I LOVE THAT BOOTH!" one exclaimed.  "I always stop there." "Me too!" responded the other enthusiastically.  (I also noted that neither one stopped there or bought anything.)

I probably spent too much time in contemplation at the doll parts booth.  I only had an hour.  And I did not buy anything.

Alas, the chandelier in my dining room remains doll head-free.  Perhaps I missed an opportunity.  Maybe I take dinner time too seriously.  It's definitely a possibility.

But great art is supposed to be provocative, no?  It's supposed to raise questions, is it not?  If that's the standard of success, I have to admit he/she achieved it.  As far as the artist's commercial success, I have no idea.  Either way, he's probably down in his parent's basement gluing a doll torso to an old vacuum cleaner right now.  Vive l'art!

Plants with meaning, part 4

Time for another blog post about growing plants from cuttings! 🙂🌸

To continue yesterday's post, I successfully started two hydrangeas from cuttings over the last couple of summers; my second went from a small cutting to a small shrub in the course of a year.  (Which was amazing considering how little I was home to nurture it.)

Years ago, in one shady corner of my yard, I planted a small hydrangea from Lowe's.  It struggled, it didn't seem too happy in it's corner, we left town for a while and when I came back it was gone.  I think the person mowing our lawn let the grass get a little high, didn't realize it was there, and took it out.

So I had to start over.  I kept getting hydrangea cuttings that didn't want to root.  I finally got one going, it made it a year and died.  So I've put my time in working on this corner!  But I didn't want to give up.  I really, really wanted a hydrangea in this spot, and I really, really wanted to grow one from a cutting.  So I tried again.

At the entrance to the neighborhood next to ours, there are several large-ish hydrangea bushes planted behind the sign with the neighborhood's name.  They are visible, but not very.  I fell in love with this hydrangea every time I passed it walking my dogs.  It's beautiful.  It's a hydrangea with blooms of different colors at once; some purple, some pink, and some in-between.  I love it.

So I clipped some small cuttings from the back of the bush that was behind the sign, from a spot that wasn't visible unless you were standing behind the sign, in front of a fence.  (Translation: the spot was not visible at all to 99.9% of passers-by, hence my reason for clipping from it.)

And finally, I got one to root.  My cutting showed some growth, than made it through the winter.  I'm not sure what I did right this time, but I did something.  I saw the first flower last summer and it was exciting!  Here it is:

Ignore the tree lily growing behind it and the passion flower vine in front...

The pink flower on the right is the first flower it's given me.

For some reason the left side looks bigger and more vigorous, but the whole shrub seems happy in it's spot!

(Note the little fence around it; I learned my lesson about weed wackers and trying to grow cuttings!)

I passed the mother of my hydrangea baby one day last October when it was full of blooms and looking absolutely beautiful.  There was a deep freeze coming that night, the first one of the year.  I knew the temperatures would drop so low that all the flowers would freeze and die off.  I couldn't stand the thought of them gone, so I waited till dark, went back to the shrub, and clipped the flowers off to put in a vase.  Here they are:

Aren't they lovely?? 💕

The initial colors of the first blooms on this shrub are vivid and bright.

By October they had faded to these soft shades of cream, pink and purple.

As they dried they continued to look beautiful  I kept them dry in the vase for months.

That's another thing I love about hydrangeas; the color shifting!  The flowers of certain types bloom one way and slowly change to another - and they are very long lasting as cut flowers.  What's not to love?

This hydrangea's story will be: the-one-I-finally-got-to-grow-from-a-cutting-from-the-neighborhood-next-door.  (After the little one I bought at Lowe's died!)

And finally, I've got one more cutting I tried to root last summer.  Here it is:

This little hydrangea cutting came from a plant I gave to friend for her 50th wedding anniversary.  It was a pretty purple hydrangea.  Such a small cutting!

I wasn't sure this was going to do anything, but I put it in a glass of water to see.  (I love my plant experiments so much that I have little cuttings in little cups of water all over the place in my windows during summer...)  After a month, it was just as green and vibrant as when it was first cut.  So I thought I'd put it in the ground and see what it would do.

After a couple of weeks, it looked like there was a small green node growing at it's base.  It was definitely alive!

I covered it when it got really cold, but it's hard to tell when I check on it now if it's alive or not.  It started, but were the roots big and strong enough to last before the weather changed?  I'll have to wait and see.  It doesn't look so good.  But you never know!

And that's what's so much fun about gardening!  The surprise successes, the tiny babies that come to life with a little bit of love and nurture.  The surprise deaths are the NOT fun part of course, but I suppose they make the survivors seem all that more special.  I must have tried to root a hydrangea in the corner of my yard at least six times before I got one to take.

But it has, and I can't wait to see what it does this year!

Plants with meaning, part 3

Here's the third installment of "plants with meaning" - also known as "gardening success from cuttings." 🌺  I was pretty excited about a couple of new baby shrubs I got going from parent plants last summer.

A disclaimer before I start: of the cuttings I took to try to root, two of these came from public places.  While I don't normally help myself to cutting from plants in public places (without permission), these came from plants in unusual circumstances, where I thought it was ok.  I'll explain as I go.  

In the summer, when I'm visiting the town where I grew up, I often park my car in an empty parking lot at my former elementary school in the middle of town and go run.  I do this because there are a lot of great jogging routes from the school, and they pass a lot of the beautiful old houses I like to look at.

Anyway, each time I returned to my car last summer, I noticed a small garden on the side of the school that wasn't there when I was a child.  The grassy area on the side of the school was cordoned off, and there was a painter's lift machine parked outside the school.  The school was locked and the entry way blocked as repairs were being done on the historic building.

The garden was overgrown and in awful condition, which was sad.  (It had obviously been planted with love at some point.  I wondered if the person who planted it had passed away?)  You couldn't walk over to the garden without crossing some yellow tape, which I always did.  (There was never anyone working there when I was there; it was strange, all the signs of work-in-progress were there every day, yet I never saw anyone there although it was always the middle of the day.)

I would end every run walking around the garden and looking at the flowers growing through the weeds.  (This is the second year I've visited the overgrown garden; if it's in the same shape next summer I'm tempted to go and weed it; it just seems so pitiful.)

Anyway, on the side of the garden was a big hydrangea bush, with exactly two flowers.  (Maybe it was wanting some fertilizer?)  Anyway, they were beautiful blue flowers.  I've always loved blue hydrangeas.

Finally one day I decided to clip one of the hydrangea flowers.  After all, the garden was a mess, it was cordoned off so no one could get to it, and I doubted anyone even saw it.  Me, I could enjoy this hydrangea flower every day.  So I cut it.  (That was my justification, anyway.)

I took my little flower home and put it in a vase in the window.  It was *beautiful.*  (I really believe no one could have enjoyed this flower like I did!)

The blue hydrangea looked perfect a week later.  So perfect, that I took it home in the vase to Tennessee, where I put it in a window and it continued to look perfect for another month.  (Another thing I love about hydrangeas?  Their incredibly long lives in vases...)

From time to time I would take the hydrangea flower out of the vase.  I noticed it was growing LOTS of roots, without my doing anything to encourage them.  (No root hormone added.)  This hydrangea wanted to live!

So when the Tennessee heat began to subside at the end of September, I planted the hydrangea stem in the backyard.  I was thrilled to note that it held it's flower and looked green and vibrant all fall.  When the cold hit in December, the flower head finally fell off.  We had a super freeze at the end of the month; I covered my little stem with a towel for a couple of days and kept my fingers crossed.

Just the other day (mid-January) I checked it, and saw two green growths at the stem coming out of the ground.  Yes indeed, it wants to live!  With the smallest of effort (all I did was put it in the ground and cover it when it got super cold) this hydrangea rooted and established itself.  This is one hardy plant!

I'm so excited about it; I've always wanted a blue hydrangea, and I didn't imagine this one cutting would root on it's own.

So now I have a blue hydrangea in my yard that came from the garden of my elementary school.  I love that!

Here's what it looked like when I planted it:

The Kingsford Park blue hydrangea.
After about five weeks, the blue flower head faded to a beautiful light green color.
Look how healthy this cutting looked after five weeks in a vase!
It's hard to tell in this pic, but the bottom is completely covered in roots it developed.

Well, I was going to continue but this post was longer than I expected.  I'll save my next cutting success for the next post.

To be continued next time...🌸🌺

Plants with meaning, part 2

Over the years, I've planted a lot of shrubs along our 6' privacy fence.  I thought it would be pretty to have something that flowers in front of every post. (The fence posts are 6' apart).  Of the original shrubs I planted, at least half died.  The rose bush and it's replacement?  Too temperamental.  With one exception, every rose bush I've ever planted has succumbed to disease.  They always get leaf blight, slowly lose their leaves and die.

I had a weigela that grew well and gave me beautiful pink flowers.  Than suddenly it just died.  Just like that.  I never knew what happened it to it.

I planted a lily tree that my son weed wacked three years in a row.  I finally got to see it flower last summer for the first time in years!

To be honest, I can't remember what happened to the others.  Some of them never established from the beginning.  So now I've got some small shrub-lings in front of the posts, shrubs I'm growing from cuttings.

I was outside last summer when I became very aware of my secondary reason to plant shrubs along the fence.  While I love our neighbors, there's one place along the fence where the view from their patio looks directly over ours.  When they're out and we're out, it's not very private.  So I thought I'd plant something that would grow tall - and quickly - in front of that place.  Something that would block the view, but have flowers.

I have a rose of sharon tree in my garden with light pink flowers, and when it blooms in the fall, it's just beautiful.  It's the kind of plant that blooms so generously, it's just covered in flowers when it blooms.

Rose of sharon trees (or shrubs, depending on how you prune them) grow quickly.  They also can be grown easily; just cut a piece of branch from a rose of sharon, stick it in the ground, keep it watered and you have another.  

So when my neighbor Teresa was moving two years ago, I asked her if she minded if I took a few cuttings from her tree while I was helping her move.  Of course she didn't!  Teresa had a beautiful purple rose of sharon in her back yard.  I figured if I was going to plant a second, I'd get one with a different color.

It took a couple of tries.  I had to go back to her house for new cuttings once or twice.  But on the third of fourth try, I got one growing.  I stuck the little cutting in the ground in the spring of 2021.  Last fall (a year and a half later), I saw it's first flowers.

From a little 6" cutting, it grew this much in a year and a half.
After it bloomed, I cut the side branches off.  I want it to grow into a tree, not a shrub.
I want it to be tall rather than wide.

While I know rose of sharon trees are pretty ubiquitous, this one is still special to me.  My friend Teresa may have left, but I remember her every time I see this tree.  It's not just ANY rose of sharon!

And to bring the blog back on point...I was at Lowe's last summer, and I happened to see this:

A rose of sharon, about the same size as mine.

But THIS one cost a bit more than free!

Not only did I save $30, but I had the fun of growing mine myself.

And my rose of sharon came from someone special.

I think I'm growing a garden of memories.

I was just looking through photos from 2018, and I couldn't believe the photos of the first rose of sharon in my garden.  It was tiny!  In four years, it grew enormously.  It shouldn't be long before my new one  is taller than the fence.

My new tree-ling may be a rose of sharon, but she's a rose of Teresa to me.