Just a girl with a nail gun

This spring I actually experienced spring fever for the first time in many years. I felt itchy to get in the garden and I purchased prolific amounts of plants via mail order and local nurseries. Our dog and her friends ran roughshod over the garden and I didn’t even care because the seal was broken and I! was! buying! everything!

I grew sweet peas (‘April in Paris’) for the first time and, holy shit, people, those smell as good as everyone says they do. I got my new plant babies in the ground in a timely fashion! I kept thinking, "This is my year. I'm going to stay on top of weeds and for once I won't be embarrassed to have people over."

Then I had to travel to California a bunch of times and then the weather turned hot and my brain and body lost all of their go-go. Oxalis covered everything and Greg would helpfully ask, "Do you think you should do something about that?" and I would glare at him and return to melting in front of the garden mister.

This was not my year. I didn't stay up on weeding. That said, I did achieve a couple of things. I replaced the rotting fence between us and our newest neighbors. They are delightful but they smoke constantly and they have a clear view of our yard from the raised deck off the back of their house. So we asked if we could replace the fence and foot the bill. I disassembled the old fence and built the new one in three hours one Sunday morning while Greg was gone because NAIL GUNS ARE AWESOME. 

Before

After

Weirdos from Craigslist took the old boards for reuse and I drank two cocktails at a tiki bar and took an epic four hour nap. The fence is now seven feet tall, which should also help block the view of our backyard from the three-story condos that were recently built at the end of our block. 

I also reorganized our garage, which looked like the touchdown site of a tornado. Our garage is long and skinny and full of junk. It looks like the inside of my purse but dirtier and with more things that draw blood. The previous owner, a paranoid mess who wrapped every heat register in the house in tin foil (so the government can't listen in on you), installed a useless shelf with a gigantic mirror tilted back. 

See, I don't need safety measures like mirrors to know if someone is sneaking up on me because I left 900 nursery pots at the entrance of the garage. There's a pile of styrofoam you can fall on, too.

We finally took the mirror down, demoed the shelf, and removed a weird cabinet in the corner that we used to store spiders.

We moved our metal shelves to the back and I built a potting table, modified from this video I found on YouTube. Men have largely convinced women that we'll kill ourselves if we use power tools but it turns out building stuff isn’t that hard and its super fun.

Then I added hanging storage to the walls and now sometimes I just stand in my garage and coo in this general direction. As my mother always says, "Simple minds = simple pleasures."

Next up we’re having the yellow bamboo that came with the house removed. It has been terribly behaved, sending rhizomes through the root balls of neighboring plants, at a shocking speed. It leaves culm litter everywhere and it sucks. WHY IS THIS THE BAMBOO HOME DEPOT SELLS EVERYONE? In its place I'm planting Chusqea culeou, which is a true clumper that shouldn't be quite so messy.

Next year is going to be my year, I can just feel it. I'm going to stay on top of weeds and for once I won't be embarrassed to have people over. And I will buy a lot of plants, that I know is true.

Life updates and plans

So 2017 was a pretty crappy year, huh?

Despite the constant feeling of doom we had some good things happen. We adopted a puppy from the Oregon Humane Society. He name is Bee (Beezus Marie when she's bad) and she's pretty much the best dog. We adopted her during a heatwave where temperatures reached 107 and our backyard was being hardscaped. It was chaos. You haven't lived until you've scraped puppy poop off your kitchen mat in 107 degrees while some construction guy tries not to stare at you.

Our hardscaping is done and I have declared 2018 to be "The Year of No Big Projects, Damn It. Just Enjoy Your Fucking Garden, Heather."

We replaced the franken-fence at the entrance to the backyard with a proper fence and a gate that keeps the dog in and random runaway dogs out (I can't tell you how many dogs have appeared in our backyard, meaning I spent the day trying to find their owner instead of gardening).

Before

After

We hired someone to do it because we are not good at building fences. The gates never close right and they're always a little crooked. This stupid little run of fence makes me SO happy every time I see it.

Before

After

I'm also planting more flowers because more flowers are more better. I am not optimistic but I am planting flowers as a way of staying sane.

I lifted this from Facebook, the artist is JM Nieto

I've also been trying to simplify the front garden. I'd like the luxury of having a bad year or two without having to worry about maintaining the public area of our house. As a result I think we're becoming "the agave house" but I don't care because I like my agaves and I have pups coming out my ears. I'm buying more of the plants I already have in an attempt at cohesion. I look forward to spending a lot of money to reduce my front garden to three plants, then changing my mind in a few years.

I'm also trying to figure out how I want to use this blog going forward. I'm considering turning off commenting so this exists as more of a garden diary. It's not that I don't want to hear from people, it's that it stresses me out to feel like I need to reciprocate and comment on the blogs I read. There's only so many times you can comment, "Gosh, that's pretty" before you start to sound and feel like an idiot robot.

Bee is going to keep widening the pathway she's put right here. Dogs are funny.

The backyard fence

No joke, the day the house passed into my ownership a huge wind swept through the valley and knocked down a portion of my fence. It's like the universe wanted to welcome me to homeownership by crushing my spirits and taking all my money right away.

The neighbors put the fallen section in my yard. I met one of them this summer and I asked her if she knew who owned the fence, and was it a shared burden?

"Oh, we think the fence is yours!" she replied. Of course you do!

Ryan helped me jury rig the fence one morning using some rope. It looks classy, I know!

The posts (which are sunk in the neighbors' yard) weren't sunk into concrete.  The wood is rotting and the whole operation is ready to fall into their yard at any minute.

 

 I checked out a bunch of books on Oregon neighbor and property laws and promptly put them in a pile somewhere and forgot about them. I called the city and asked if they could just tell me if the fence was mine.  I was told I have to hire a surveyor who would figure out the property lines.  I need to spend some money just to (most likely) have someone tell me that the fence is mine.  I'm not thrilled.

Luckily it's wet and cold out and I don't think cement would dry in this weather, so I'm hoping I can hold off on a new fence until spring.  Last night was especially windy and I was convinced the whole fence was going to blow down.  Luckily, just that one part fell down again.  That, folks, is what they call the silver lining.

That looks sturdy, right?  Portland wind, KNOCK IT OFF.