December 20th, 2006 by Marc Opperman
On Monday I completed a little improvement to the front flower bed that I really like. I added a lot of river stone just under the windows. Previously there was mulch that was looking pretty bad, and the cats had been using it as a litter box. Gross.
I had seen a post on Freecycle for leftover river rock, gravel that had mixed, rounded rocks 1.5 inches in size. It looks like it is probably Texan stone based on fossils and the amount of limestone in it. Someone had purchased 10 tons to resurface their driveway, but had a leftover ton or so. Jenna and I went to dig a bit, and ended up collecting about 500 pounds.
December 3rd, 2006 by Marc Opperman
I haven’t done much with the garden over the last few days… really since before the weekend. Part of it is that since things froze last week, it now looks like Winter to me. I cleared out some of the stuff that froze, and have gone into some form of gardening hibernation mode or something, even though (in Texas, at least) Winter is the season to build new beds and fix up old ones — as long as you don’t need to transplant too much.
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December 2nd, 2006 by Marc Opperman
Today I’m feeling like I overdid it on the gardening over the last few days. Too much material-collecting and grinding. Yesterday I also chopped out all the frozen stuff around the yard and cleared out the front bed with intentions to redo it eventually, make it into something a little less crowded and native with more intention to how the stone is placed. I also chopped out the understory of the remaining yaupon holly and bagged that up for the city. It’s too wiry and the branches too kinked for the shredder. I raked up a lot of leaves, though for the most part, many of the leaves are still on the trees, especially the elm. Amazing for Dec. 2!
I was basically lazy today, though I did field a visit by a fly-by-night tree-trimmer. He wanted to whack out most of the front elm (I said no way) but asked him what he’d want to chop down the hated chinese tallow in the back. $350. Hmm. I think I need to get back to Chris Ford and strike up that conversation again.
December 2nd, 2006 by Marc Opperman
Today I’m feeling like I overdid it on the gardening over the last few days. Too much material-collecting and grinding. Yesterday I also chopped out all the frozen stuff around the yard and cleared out the front bed with intentions to redo it eventually, make it into something a little less crowded and native with more intention to how the stone is placed. I also chopped out the understory of the remaining yaupon holly and bagged that up for the city. It’s too wiry and the branches too kinked for the shredder. I raked up a lot of leaves, though for the most part, many of the leaves are still on the trees, especially the elm. Amazing for Dec. 2!
I was basically lazy today, though I did field a visit by a fly-by-night tree-trimmer. He wanted to whack out most of the front elm (I said no way) but asked him what he’d want to chop down the hated chinese tallow in the back. $350. Hmm. I think I need to get back to Chris Ford and strike up that conversation again.
December 1st, 2006 by Marc Opperman
Today I yanked five more bags of leaves and other organic stuff from the streets. Most of this was from around Shoal Creek somewhere between Austen’s school and Anderson Lane.
I started grinding it. It was wet from last night’s rain. That made the shredder much less happy than the dryer stuff from the previous days. More clogs. I discovered I could run a few sticks from my brush pile through and that would force most clogs through. In any event, seems the wetter the green stuff is, the more likely it is to clog the shredder.
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December 1st, 2006 by Marc Opperman
I suddenly realized today I wanted to keep a ‘blog devoted to my gardening discoveries, progress and happenings. It was just over two years ago that Jenna and I purchased this house with a veritable blank slate of a yard. In that time, I’ve made a lot of progress toward landscaping the place, but since my “underemployment” began, I’ve really gotten serious about making it into a dreamland garden oasis.
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