April 9, 2010

Shade bed progress...

Alright, I promised pictures... So here is what I've been working on so diligently for the past week. I ripped out some old boxwoods from in front of the porch and rearranged the existing perennials with two little mountain laurels. They will grow to be 4'x4' eventually. There are also 7 ferns planted along the back of the bed that have yet to show there faces, for those i am very excited! I really do love ferns...

Then there is the bit of picket fence that we've gotten up. The wood, with the exception of the rails, my dad got from someone who was tearing down an old barn. We cut it down, ripped it into thirds, mitered the ends, and sanded it. Now it just needs its coat of grey-blue paint...

Lastly, the walk way. There was a concrete path leading from the road to our porch. But we couldn't use it because our old dogwood overhangs it. So we rented a jack hammer and took that up, now we have dug a new path from the driveway around to the steps... I leveled it the best i could, shoveled in some sand and started laying bricks till we ran out of light. And i think it all looks quite nice. There are many other projects I cant wait to work on (such as covering up the stone front of the house with navy blue siding) but so far this is making me pretty happy.

4 comments:

jene said...

you're so creative : ]

The Oak Leaves said...

Thanks Jene! I try!

Kate said...

Hey, I adore ferns too, but they wilt so quickly in my house. Haven't installed any in my garden yet, but that's coming soon. What do you recommend, other than frequent watering, to keep them perky? Martha Stewart suggested a dish under the pot filled with stone and water. Does that make sense, or is there something more obvious I'm overlooking?

The Oak Leaves said...

The dish of water is definitely a good idea for most ferns because they like a humid environment also keeping a mister next to them and misting once a day helps, the water on the leaves prevents further evaporation through transpiration...

If you do go with the dish of water place the stones directly under the pot to keep it out of the water... ferns don't like being water logged either...

Also, the bathroom is a good place to try keeping them :)