Front Porch Update
Category Archives: Home & Garden
Home Improvement October 2023
Front and back window updates:
Fancy new front door hinges with a foot stopper:
Backyard Tweaks
What could be better than a Spinner?
A SOLAR garden spinner!
Front Porch Updates
Spinner and Backyard Updates
Back and Front Yard Garden Tour
While not as vibrant as Spring, this is around the time of the equinox and the beginning of Autumn. There are amazing blooms from the succulents in the front yard which we love, but some of the changing colors (not the ones typical of the ones “leafers” look for in New England) are in flux in the background, so there’s a lot of green right now, which I keep arguing IS a color. Soon there will be a lot of blue from the rosemary bushes, and some of the other “green blobs” will have white and yellow flowers as the two mature plum trees lose most of their leaves, taking some of our privacy away in one direction for a few months. The lemon tree is about to have tons of ripening take place too.
Backyard:
Front yard:
VGN Potluck
From these pictures it looks like I was the only one at Lou’s house that day. It was still a bit brisk so people stayed inside. However, I wanted to make sure I captured what I saw. I loved Lou’s backyard and historical home, but I was only able to stop by for a little while before heading downtown to help setup for the big gala for the shelter the same evening.
Simultaneous Garden Remote Spinners
I now have two remote-controlled spinners for the optical illusion ball in wire object and the metal globe with the repurposed license plate Vallejo sign. This gives some idea of our backyard porch view and part of our garden, with some cameos from a few dogs. You can hear the four water features going. They turn on courtesy of Alexa at sunrise and shut off when the lights come on at sunset, which is also when the solar lights illuminate the back garden areas. This is our sanctuary (especially during early Covid).
No Bugs Were Harmed…
…in the making of this video, but I wanted to convince myself that it was alive, so I kept bumping it until it stretched its arms out to brace itself.
Under my gardening table I have a trash can that I use for convenience to discard things I can’t compost. I almost reached in to get one of the bamboo leaves that fell in there, only to see that it was a living bug! Lest you think I was making it up, here’s the juxtaposition from the bamboo area of our backyard and under the outdoor staircase where a lot of the dead bamboo leaves collect.
These clippings cannot die!
When we first moved here to Vallejo our friend Manny who lives on Mare Island and who used to live in Glen Cove, gave Shando some clippings that we planted in our front yard. Most memorably Manny said, “No matter what you do, these CANNOT die.”
That was very helpful in my decision to start getting serious about gardening. We replaced the small patch of grass that I was not very thrilled to have to mow with this area where we planted a young palm tree surrounded by succulents with mulch.
I’ve since killed LOTS of things in our gardens, but these have survived, just like Manny said. Indeed, THIS year they have grown with leaps and bounds, and look how beautiful they’ve bloomed this week!
