Hoosierhillsinc - Landscape Designer

At the beginning of the year, or some time around then, one of my bosses friends brought us giant pumpkin seeds from his 700+ pound pumpkin from last year.  There were twenty in all and we split them between three of us.  Of course my boss always has to have a competition of some sort so we bet that we each would get the biggest pumpkin out of the bunch.  I started growing mine in little pots in the house and they did great.  I then transferred them to a nice spot (or what I thought was a nice spot) in my front yard when they got too big for their pots.  That was around May.  There were seven in all and I have been struggling to get them to continue to grow.  I lost three of them to some animal and the other four really have not grown.  I was out  marketing with my boss today and he told me that one of his plants is huge and he has two pumpkins.  I had been wondering if my plants were far behind the growth curve and that confirmed that they were.  I actually had not looked at them since last weekend because it has been raining every evening and into most mornings so I did not need to go and water them.  I looked at them when I got home today and they are not doing well at all.  They look the same as the last time I saw them and another one has been eaten.  I don't think there is any rescuing them.  I did talk to my boss about what we did differently and his are in a raised garden area.  He said the soil was imported and he had been adding ashes from his fireplaces all winter.  So, I don't know what I am going to do.  Maybe I will pull them back out of the ground and try putting them back into a pot with just potting soil this weekend.  I guess I am not going to win the "bet".

P.S. The third person has since left the company so we have no clue how well hers are doing.

[wp_caption id="attachment_170" align="alignright" width="225" caption="Not a honeysuckle?"][/wp_caption]

Do be kind and have a look.

Though I am beginning to feel intimately attached to my perennials, I have yet to be formally introduced to many of them. Now that they are coming into bloom, I beg leave to impose on you, gentle readers, to perform the introductions. 

The tall stalks with blue flowers I had half-imagined might be hollyhocks - but Wikipedia has disabused me of that notion. I also thought sure the vine is a honeysuckle, but I have heard that they smell wonderful and grow madly, requiring much cutting back. The flowers of this vine do not have a particularly strong scent, and the vine itself has demonstrated quite restrained growth. Finally, I have no guess to hazard with respect to the yellow stalks.

Please tell me their names so I can write them down in my garden journal along with a note to credit your good advice. 

The recent landscaping has all been construction and, as yet, I haven't tried adding a surface to it. That changed today with a brief test to see how the 'eggbox' construction would take a skin – or should that be shell. Truth be told, I couldn't wait any longer to see something that more resembled a hillside.

So here we are with a reminder of how the landscaping looks 'pre-experiment'.

And now, with a test covering of newspaper strips coated in a Polyfilla mix. Again, I'm pleased with the results. The 'eggbox' lends itself well to lapping the strips into the voids and then continuing with the surface in sections. It is easy, therefore, to test the technique this far and then continue with the surfacing task when the complete structure is finished.

Back to the construction side of landscaping, however. Before I get too carried away with the 'Dalesmouth' viaduct end of 'Overdale Tunnel', I need to create the tunnel entrance at the 'Overdale Quarry' end. Which is what you see here. I am also testing clearances as I go.


Once again the trusty hot melt glue gun is pressed into service. The construction is quite rough, but it can be. Not much of the tunnel interior will be visible when landscaping is finished. I just need to create the impression of dark tunnel walling.

i was going to title this 'front lawns are the faces to our homes'

or 'lawns are the first impression' or something equally cliche and corny.

bah.

i haven't written in a while because i've been actually pretty involved in DOING... i've been landscaping, and this has provided me with a lot of examples of excessive frivolity on lawns, gardens, and related items.

without spewing my bad feelings about the unashamed wealth of a good portion of rich torontonians, i will say that i've fallen in love with the idea of lawns saying something about the people that live within the home that falls behind that lawn.

i was walking home from a friend's house and saw this:

i really couldn't decide what i thought of it, but i knew it needed to be documented.  i felt strongly about it, but didn't know how i felt.  more than a month after i've taken the photos, i still don't know how i feel.

this entry reminds me of some old journal entries; sort of rambling and unrelated, but i'm done school and i need to continue to write, so i will publish this entry knowing that i will continue to write BETTER pieces in the near future.

Okay, I finally have the pictures. I had to brave this very hot and humid day to get them. This is the hottest it as felt since I moved here June 1st. There are also pictures of a cactus that is about to bloom. On to the pictures:

The mailbox area will soon get mulch and it will look better. This was a fix to an area that needed major help and I love the way that it turned out. The cactus has had buds on it since mid-June and is just today startint to bloom. I will try and figure out how to make the pics bigger so that you don't have to click on them.

Thanks for reading and come back again,

Jake

[Landscaping]

Project Name:  Steele Cares Boys Home, Inc

Project Number:  EA89

Project Time Req'd:  TBD by Project Leader.

Project Description:  Provide clean up and maintenance to yard. (3.24 acres)

Project Leader:  Open

Amount of volunteers needed:  3 SPOTS AVAILABLE

For more information or to volunteer please contact us at outreach@westridge.com

[Landscaping]

Project Name:  Pearson's Home

Project Number:  EA86

Project Time Req'd:  TBD by Project Leader.

Project Description:  Basic landsaping which consists of cutting grass and weed eating the yard.

Project Leader:  Open

Amount of volunteers needed:  FULL

For more information or to volunteer please contact us at outreach@westridge.com

[Landscaping]

Project Name:  Melissa Bothwell's Home

Project Number:  EA81

Project Time Req'd:  TBD by Project Leader.

Project Description:  Provide landsaping help for a widow.

Project Leader: Open

Amount of volunteers needed:  FULL

For more information or to volunteer please contact us at outreach@westridge.com

Here's sort of a quick link guide to the Top 12 places. I hope it's been useful -- I really, truly appreciate the great comments received here and in-world, and it's been absolutely delightful to speak with several of the designers that were spotlighted in the list. I'm going to add a link over to the right of the page so that this post can be easily accessed going forward, and I really do hope it can be considered a toolkit of sorts for folks who are ready to claim their own second space!

Houses:

Part 1: Barnesworth Anubis Pre-Fab[ulous] Homes & Furniture [blog post]

Part 2: The Black Spot Shipyard [blog post]

Furniture:

Part 3: The Loft [blog post]

Part 4: Mezzanine [blog post]

Part 5: Del Sol Furniture [blog post]

Part 6: Rustica Home Furnishings [blog post]

Part 7: Ramos Designs Furniture [blog post]

Landscape:

Part 8: Heart Garden Centre [blog post]

Part 9: Botanical [blog spot]

Accessories:

Part 10: CAS [blog post]

Part 11: Avenue Four [blog post]

Part 12: Shade Fantasy Outfitters [blog post]

Thanks again to all for the positive feedback on this series. Stay tuned -- I've got more evil plots that I'm hatching and plan to unleash on the world - you don't wanna miss that! In the meantime, I'm going to try my best to resume regularly blogging; I have a few places I was contacted to review, so I want to be sure to get those taken care of first. Hope you'll check back often!

This is what happens when your husband makes friends with your landscaper...

and both of them have a thing for heavy machinery.

I admit, I love uncovering more of the gorgeous rock we are living on. My concern is with the gaping holes they leave when they run out of ledge, but still have rental time on the bulldozer... My other thought is, is this really what we want to highlight in the yard?