And speaking of putting everything together...I've been going through old posts and just love your patio. I would love a little more detail of how you did it.

Thanks for the inspiration. I took the day off today and your post went perfectly with my tea. Now, out to weed!

Patty S.

No.

It's still not right. And as soon as something looks just right, it dies. And it looks good for two months if we don't have a heat wave.

Some of the irises have been moved a dozen times. All of the daylilies have been moved. Most of the roses have been moved, some more than once. The big green myrtle egg has never been moved, though, and I am proud of that. That's why it's an egg instead of its natural shape- I planted it in a spot that's too small, as usual.

Thank you all for the kind words. It makes the work go easier, knowing I'm not the only one who will see the result.

Patty, I hate your hose too.

Sandi, the rubble patio is laid on sand, and it covers old shed slabs, septic tanks made of sunken 55 gallon drums, and who knows what kinds of toxic waste from years of Bultaco repair before I moved in.

It's very easy to do- Mikey and I just took all of our left-over mortar and concrete from other projects and threw it into square(ish) wood forms or cottage cheese containers and stuck things in the top. We used broken flagstone, bricks, concrete block, railroad spikes, old tiles- anything we could find or get from friends. One summer I sat there in the evening and leveled one little "cell" at a time with a rubber mallet, brushed sand over the top, then we mortared the edges in place. We had to buy some sand and about $200 bucks worth of bricks, which seemed pretty expensive at the time. It has held up well. If you mix regular dirt with the sand to fill the gaps it stays in place better.

Renee

i bought one of the very skinny little colored hoses from a catalog to use for my front deck plants and i like it a lot. menwhile, hooked up by his garage, my dh has a very manly monster hose that i can barely haul around. you would just love to have one like that. min

Mantis, thank you for the compliment. It started out an eye-searing mix of scarlet, coral, and gold, but Gardenwebbers came to the rescue and helped me mellow the color scheme while sticking to the hot colors I like.

The butter yellow rose in the first pic is the floribunda Julia Child- a wonderful rose with old-fashioned looking blooms. The bright yellow rose in the second photo is a hybrid tea called Henry Fonda- another fantastic rose, with very long stemmed flowers. Both can take our heat. The little daisy is an annual chrysanthemum- Paludosum Daisy. They grow well from seed- buy one six-pack and you will have them for life. The orchid-pink iris is Persian Berry, and it's a great performer here, blooming nice and early before the heat really hits and increasing well. As you can see, just about every plant gets a bloom stalk every year. The peachy iris is Peach Royale.

Patty S.

Patty S.

The pathways were not designed, pippi. I had extra Arizona flagstone from my kitchen floor project, and I had mud around my four raised vegetable beds, so I threw the flagstones down between the beds. Ten years later, the veggies are gone and the flagstones are still tripping me. I'm re-leveling a section this week because it has gotten so deadly.
Renee

Have no idea what iris this is, but it sure is pretty. My variegated ones are getting ready to bloom, too. Going to plant more of those.

Patty S.

dwarf iris's

freesias

ceanothus joyce coulter

lilac blue skies

ceanothus carmel creeper

ceanothus tessajara blue and yankee point

white rock roses

yesterday,today,tomorrow

penstemon margarita BOP

dwarf bottlebrush little john...tons of buds