This addiction? Outdoors

Red cannas in the back of the deck display were attacked by Japanese 
beetles, but fought them off and now are thriving

When the Baker's young daughter was injured in a school bus accident, she was treated and released in the hospital's emergency room, and returned home. This mother made sure her child was comfortable indoors, and then headed outside to weed the garden.

With passion.

The example of gardening activity right after a family crisis might be described as having "an addiction" to the yard and garden areas.

Getting outdoors in warm (and not so warm) weather is like an addiction, it seems. It's the first thing done in the morning, and last thing at night. Some of the best times to garden during a warm spell are in the early-morning hours, and at night the stars are gorgeous in the big sky above.

There are about 13 garden areas in our big Scott County yard.

If gardening is an addiction, it is a healthy habit and the results, ultimately, increase home values. Website searches show that home values increase about 15 percent in a well-landscaped home with curb appeal.

The front of the home features a new highlight: This is a side-planter mounted on a wooden holder.
Garden on!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I take on a huge porch plant, and win!

Image
The sansevieria at top is divided. The photo from it on the porch is before it was divided.        My father, Emery Cox Jr., passed away in 1989. It was a shock, of course, and we received many plants at his visitation and funeral.     One of the green gifts was a  sansevieria, also called a Snake Plant or "Mother-in-Law's Tongue." I took this and planted it in a pot. You can see from the photo that it has grown like Topsy over the years.     I knew I had to divide it this year, so a few weeks ago, my husband Steve and I wrestled the giant sansevieria on the porch over to the driveway.     It really didn't take long: I picked out part of the huge plant, and placed the other in one of those heavy paper yard bags, Boom! All done!      Sansevieria is actually native to the African country of Madagascar. It's in the genus of Dracaena.     My plant does bloom, because it is located in a bright but indirect light...
Read more

Autumn arrives: Water & plant suggestions

Image
Use a rain gauge to track rainwater in the garden  In a 10 day period of late August through early September, we received more than 14 inches of rain on our gardens at home. Fourteen inches! Yikes! Luckily, the plants are mainly in well-drained areas, crafted for the past 25 years. I carted away the heavy clay soil left during the (1992-93) home construction process and started with fresh, black dirt. I also add a number of soil amendments every year. But this year, garden work has been a little different: I'm home full-time and work outdoors in nice weather almost every day. On rainy days, I track the amount of rain we receive. Scott County got a lot of rain early in September but it's toned down a bit since. For example, we received 2 inches last week. Experts say Autumn is a really good time to sustain gardens. Some hardy perennials can be planted (think Autumn sedum, or mums); the nights are fairly cool and the days are still nicely warm. We also get rain ...
Read more

A culvert is tidied up

Image
  This is how the culvert looks now. Here's how it looked before.      Last week, my husband brought up a topic I had forgotten.       "Have you weeded the culvert?" Steve asked. I replied that I ran my small weed wacker in that area of the yard. But pulling weeds? No.     "Could you?" he asked, hopefully. Well, sure. That's what I do, after all, pull weeds all over our big yard.    This project actually went pretty smoothly. In about two hours I'd pulled all the weeds, cleaned off and replaced rocks, and got rid of the debris.      What is a culvert? According to The  Constructor.org , a culvert is made up of various materials, such as aluminum, steel or concrete, and generally runs underneath or near a road to provide a place for drainage, or to run cables.       The culvert near our house was put in place several years ago by Scott County, Iowa.       Before this so...
Read more