I'm in good shape

Actually I am, but I was talking about the yard.
And since I can't seem to post without pics, here's a couple of my pond and arbor.

In order to have a waterfall, the sitting area has to be higher.

We made the back wall using cement blocks. They were placed two high and staggered inward, filled with soil and planted with sedum. By mid summer it looks like a green wall!
The sitting area is made with broken concrete pieces with the spaces between filled with pea gravel.

The bench tops were made by using a plywood board and plastic landscape edging bent and screwed to the plywood to form a slight curve. then filled with concrete mix to desired height.

the bench legs were made with plastic kitchen waste containers filled with concrete mix and turned over.

Inexpensive but functional!

But back to the yard,

I have finished weeding all the flower beds, trimmed bushes, stained the deck, painted the front patio, and sealed the driveway!

I think the yard looks in good shape for the plant sale/garden tour.

I need to divide more plants, but it's getting too late in the season. But if my sale goes well, I'll need plants for next year!

For those interested, more pics from this years yard are here. our yard

problem solved

Remember the concrete patio

I mentioned a couple

posts back? It's this 6in thick

slab of concrete.

It's cracked and painted and

just nasty looking.

We can't afford to tear it out

because it is over the well pit,

and would be very expensive.

Well,

I'm gonna show you how we fixed it.

We found this portable decking

on the Internet.

very easy to do.

They come in 1 square foot

sections that snap together.

So we measured the patio and

ordered the number we needed.
Cut the last row to fit.

You start at one corner and put

them down row by row.

The backing is plastic ribbed so

water can drain away.

put trim around edges,

stained it to match the deck

and no more ugly patio!

And it comes up just as easy, for winter storage. we've had it 4 years now.

I need a chill pill

I've been stressing for 2 weeks now!
But let me start at the beginning.
When we opened our salon 10 years ago, I started bringing in cut flower arrangements from my gardens for a table in the waiting area. Got lots of complements from customers. They thought I must have a fantastic yard. So I took in pics of the yard for people to see. You can see them here. my yard
So, now I'm having a plant sale. A lot of my perennials have gotten too large and are crowding each other, so I thought I'd divide, pot up the extras and have a plant sale! Proceeds going to our motor home gas fund. And we could really use a gas fund. But that's another story.
Now I've got a lot of customers are coming to it. And of course, they'll want a tour of the yard!
So knowing the yard doesn't look near as good in person as in pics, I've been working my ass off trying to get it into some sort of decent shape, so as to not disappoint them too much. So I'm stressing! I mean the yard looks pretty good to me, but I certainly wouldn't put it in a garden tour. I've made a lot of mistakes in the yard, and most are to big now to correct!
Like why did I plant the Weeping Cherry so close to the Viburnum? which has gotten way bigger than I expected! The pine trees in the shade garden are too close together! Most of the errors most people probably won't notice. Hopefully with such a large yard to look at they won't notice the little things that I see.
And do I even have a good enough selection of plants for my sale?
What will people be expecting?
I know,
I'm blowing everything out of proportion,
I'm sure everyone will love the yard,
I'm sure I'll sell all the plants,
now totaling 215,
Everything will be fine.
Wait......
it's daylight!.....
I've got more weeding to do!!!
later......

a quick post

Just a quick post today,

I've been very busy with work and the yard.

My Herbaceous Peonies are starting to bloom,

and I thought the color combination

in this pic looked nice.

I'm slowly getting the yard shaped up.

Yesterday morning before work,

I stained the deck. Need to do that every couple of years.

This last pic shows the concrete patio between the house and deck.

It's been patched and painted so much, it just looks nasty!

But we found a fix for it. Will show you pics later this weekend.

Now it's off to work!

More flower pics

It has been one busy weekend!
We burned a huge pile of branches that came out of the trees during the winter, trimmed more bushes and trees, and dug and divided more plants!
And I'm still weeding!
I now have 207 plants for my sale on June 3rd.
God, I hope they all sell!
Also, took in the mo-ho because when we were in Muskegon
a couple of weeks ago, the TV Booster didn't work.
They got it fixed, needed a new cable.

Today we went to Van Attas Greenhouse to
pick out the annuals for our pots.
Here is our catch.
Of course now I have to plant them all.
We have pots on our deck and in the shade garden,
and by the pond.

And a new Tree Peony is open.
It's a pale pink and the largest of all the tree peonies I have.

Here's a pic with me and the tree peony.

They are absolutely huge!
And now off to plant!

the yard....continued

More things are blooming in the yard!

First I'll show you 2 of my Deciduous Azaleas.

This one is a white with a yellow streak,

and the other is hot pink!

Unlike ever green Azaleas, these lose all their leaves

in the winter and have larger flowers of more colors.

But they don't cover the bush like evergreen Azaleas.

Next is our giant Snow Ball Bush.

It's about 15 ft tall.

Was one of the few things in the yard

when we bought the house.

Then we have Lupine.

The tall pale yellow flower spike.

The little gold button flowers,

I don't remember the name.

Then along one of my walks is a small

ground cover plant called Thrift,

with little pink button flowers.

And last is a favorite bush of mine called

Japanese Keria.

Beautiful gold carnation like flowers.

The bush gets about 6 ft tall.

It doesn't do as well in my yard as I've seen in others,

but I keep it anyway.
Oh, and an update on my plant sale for June 3rd. I now have 195 plants potted up!

This will be the last weekend to dig and divide, as most plants are getting to big to disturb.

But I should hit my goal of 200.

More pics later!

As Spring Bursts Forth.

With some warmer weather and quite a bit of rain,
The plants are really coming up!
This first pic is a Thread Leaf Japanese Maple.

I love how the leaves look shredded.
It's a small ornamental tree.
will not get much more than 10 feet tall.
It is 7 ft. now.



I have a shade garden with a dozen different Ferns. These are the tallest
at about 3ft. They spread quite rapidly.
So I've added some of them to my plant sale.
Which by the way stands at about 170 plants!

This next pic is also my shade garden.
It's called Solomon's Seal.
It has clusters of white bell shaped flowers that hang from the stems. The large leafed plants with them are called Ligularia Dentada. The will have yellow daisy like flowers this summer.

The pink bush next to the deck is an Azalea. The Japanese Maple is at the opposite end.

I also have my first Tree Peony in bloom!

They bloom earlier than the Herbaceous types.

It is a gorgeous double pink!

Tree Peonies unlike Herbaceous Peonies do not die to the ground each year. Actually Tree Peonies aren't really trees, they are more like shrubs. They develop a woody trunk. And are very slow growing. After many years they can reach 6ft tall! And the flowers are huge!

This pink one is about 10 inches across!

Stunning!

Well, that's my yard so far!

I'll add more pics

as the yard develops!
And click on the pics for a better veiw!

Mother's Day weekend

Hi all, we're back!
For Mother's Day, we took our motor home to
Muskegon State Park.
The city of Muskegon is on the other end of
Muskegon Lake.
And we were about 90 miles from Lansing.

It's a nice campground on lake
Michigan and Muskegon lake.
We were in the channel campground.
on Muskegon lake near the
channel to lake Michigan. I took this pic from the top of a sand dune.


My Mom lives in Muskegon and
had not seen the motor home yet.
As you can see from the pics,
we had a beautiful site!
A nice large pull thru site with
no neighbors on our right!

We picked up Mom, and took her to see our mo-ho.
She seemed to really like it.
After that we went to Red Lobster for lunch.
We met 3 of my other brothers there.
With their wives and a couple of kids,
we had a group of 11!
Mom was quite surprised!
She thought it was going to be just the 3 of us!
After lunch, I took mom to the "club"(the VFW),

for "refreshments", (cocktails) and some "pull tabs".
(won a little, lost a little)
Later, after we took Mom back to her apartment,
two of my brothers and their families came to the campground to check out our motor home.



It was a nice weekend!

Mother's Day

LOVE YA MOM!

A good day

Working in a salon all these years, I come across all kinds of people with all kinds of personal issues. Though some seem silly to me, they are important to them. It seems people some times have difficulty keeping things in perspective. As to what is really important and not just something trivial.
With that thought I'd like to share this.


Attitude

There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.
Well," she said, "I think I'll braid my hair today?"
So she did and she had a wonderful day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and saw that she had only two hairs on her head. "H-M-M," she said, "I think I'll part my hair down the middle today?"
So she did and she had a grand day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that she had only one hair on her head.
"Well," she said, "today I'm going to wear my hair in a pony tail." So she did and she had a fun, fun day.

The next day she woke up, looked in the mirror and noticed that there wasn't a single hair on her head.
"YEA!" she exclaimed, "I don't have to fix my hair today!"

Attitude is everything.


Have a great weekend!

A wonderfull weekend

WOW! What a weekend!

Just the best weather for spring in Mid Michigan!

I did soooo much work in the yard!

Got 3 entire sections of beds weeded.

(that's about 30% of the beds)

Sprayed all the walkways for weeds.

And I dug and divided and potted up

another 30 plants for my plant sale.

Here's a pic of the additions!

I now have 130 plants for the sale!

And more to divide!

The yard is looking good.

everything is leafing out.

Can't wait till more things bloom.

My creeping phlox is in full bloom.

And all the perennials are coming up strong! It seems most things survived the winter this year.

This is a Weeping Siberian Pea,

A real pretty ornamental tree that

sit at the edge of the pond.

Click on the pic and you can see the small yellow sweet pea like flowers.

I also washed and waxed the front of the motor home. It was covered with bug guts from the trip to Manistee. Need to wax the entire motor home, but you can't do it in a day like a car, it will need to be done a section at a time and will take all summer.

A quicky post

Haven't posted because I've been sooooo busy!
Plus not a lot to say. Been very busy at work.
Worked in the yard all day yesterday,
and plan to do the same today.
Have been digging and dividing perennials for my plant sale.
Have about a hundred so far.
Proceeds will go to the mo-ho gas fund!
I told Craig, that if gas prices go up much more,
I might have to dig up the entire yard!
I'll take some more pics later when I have more time.

But here is a pic of a shrub we have, called a Dwarf Fothergilla.
Click on the pic to see these little bottle brush like flowers.
Quite unusual! and the fall foliage turns a beautiful red!
Slow growing and compact!



More later!

funny friday

Not much to post today, been very busy in the Salon.
But was e-mailed these from a friend in Florida, so I'd thought I'd share.

Everyone have a great weekend!

Manistee

Hi all
We're back from our little trip to Manistee.
It was just a weekend trip, but was nice to get away.
Lori asked where Manistee was, so here's a map.
Click to see better. Manistee is 187 miles to the northwest of Lansing. Lansing being the orange arrow,
and Manistee being the green arrow.

This was our first trip Manistee.

A very picturesque town with many restored old buildings.

And some very nice beaches. Though quite deserted because it's not that warm yet. Got to about high 60's while we were there. And their about 2 weeks behind Lansing in terms of Spring. Their Daffodils were just into full bloom. Our Daffodils are all done and the bushes and trees are leafing out.

Here's a couple of pics of their beaches.

Beautiful sand and deep blue water.

Lake Michigan is truly gorgeous!

The RV Park at the Casino was new with full hookups and cable.

Our luck though, was not good.

That's why we seldom go to casino's.

But we drove up the coast and did some sight seeing.

And wandered thru town and had lunch at a pub with a deck out back. Here's a couple of pics from the deck.

As with most towns the buildings back up to the water.

The deck was on the street level.

As you can see the river is quite

a bit lower than the street.

And as with a lot of cities,

they are reclaiming the river

for recreational use.

They built this nice river walk with boat docks and a performing pavilion across the river.

Oh, and lunch was delicious!

And our mo-ho was great. Everything worked well.

Our next trip will be to Muskegon State Park

for Mother's Day weekend. My Mom has not seen the mo-ho

yet so this will give us another chance to use it.

Muskegon is due west on the map.

Also on lake Michigan. About 90 miles.