This time, we start with some views from outside the fenced yard, looking in.
Standing under the bald cypress, looking roughly south-southeast.
This portion of the fence is part of the section we're thinking of re-doing. The "semi-shade garden" is beyond that lattice wall.
From the same spot, looking more due south.
Note the ferocious guard dog standing under the oh-so elegant "BEWARE OF THE DOG" sign.
If and when we redo the fence, this gate will also be replaced with something more classic in style, I hope. At that time, I'd like to put up a nicer-looking "keep out or face the wrath of dog" sign. ;o) Posting a sign of some sort is a good idea-- to warn people that there may be a dog in the yard (and maybe even deter criminals)-- but I don't love the look of these generic signs. An upgrade is planned.
Same spot, facing more south-southwest.
Hey, did you notice in the photo above that we've put up both sides of the arbor?
From here, you can glimpse the shed down at the back of the yard.
Still outside the fence, but moved a bit to the right and looking back toward the house.
From here, you can see the next part of the path that Donald has begun to dig.
(Also, there's a dog's hindquarters on both edges of this photo... Trixie on the left and Luna on the right.)
Inside the yard now.
Here's the north-easternmost corner of the fenced yard. This is the area I mentioned weeding, last time. (As you can see, I just pulled and tossed. Eh, they'll have withered away in another day or two. They're fertilizing the lawn. ...And spreading weed seed, too, but let's not think about that.)
In the background, the neighbors who share the easement with us have recently (within the past couple of weeks) hired some work done-- mostly on the part of the easement that lies past where our own driveway veers off. There's quite a bit of slope on that part, and it washes in heavy rain.
From about the same spot, turned 180 degrees.
This is a familiar angle. There's the semi-shade garden on the left (Curcuma elata is lookin' good!) and the bamboo, elephant ears, butterfly ginger, etc. on the right. Those elephant ears are growing, and the night-blooming jasmine just behind is taller than I am, now!
The new bamboo ('Golden Goddess') is growing, too, but it's hard to see in this photo. (I need to do some serious weeding around the bamboo.) It's not so much getting tall as it is filling out. A very "flowy" plant.
Oh, and the watermelon crepe myrtles have begun to bloom, as you can see.
Further along the path.
Not much to say, here... You can see some of our gravel progress.
I suspect that the Confederate rose is bigger than it was in last month's "survey" photos. It certainly feels like it's sprawling out and taking up a lot of room.
Turned back in the other direction.
From this spot, you can see the arbor-in-progress from another angle. I haven't started training the rose on it, yet, because I'm still doing touch-up painting. Maybe tomorrow?
This is essentially a repeat of the previous photo, but it shows a slightly wider area.
When I look at this, two things jump out at me. First, we really need to repaint the covered patio. Probably not until the weather turns cooler, though. Second, I must do better on that flower bed area in front of the Mexican petunia (along the width of the patio). There are some real plants there, but also too many weeds trying to take over. I need to pull weeds there again... And if I could scrounge together some mulch (without a Herculean effort), that would help, too.
Here we are in the backyard-- standing on the septic pad area, to be exact. (The ground slopes significantly, both behind and to the left of where I stood to take this photo.)
It's funny that the lawn actually looks pretty good in this photo! Maybe there's more grass there than I thought... Anyway, this area is still a work in progress. We'll put a small patio between the trellis and the porch (using mostly paving stones that will be removed during the gravelling of the pathway), and I plan to extend the flower garden to surround the new patio.
I've already started planting that area, but there's more to do-- and I'm still not sure where I want the flower bed to end. I may pull it out a bit further into the lawn than originally planned. I don't want to bite off more than I can chew, but goodness knows there's room for a wider bed. The lawn in this area is nothing to brag about, and there would still be plenty of it left even if I widened the flower bed by several feet. (Not going to do that, though.)
Moving in a bit closer.
This trellis looked more fully clothed in morning glories before the rabbits got after it. But hey, I'm grateful to have anything blooming there at all. The two pieces of passionflower vine I transplanted back to the trellis are both alive and growing-- but slowly.
You can't see it from this photo (thank goodness), but the "rose bed" area in front of the bay window has been heavily populated by weeds. They went from "oh, probably need to weed sometime" to "beware! the jungle will engulf you" in record time. RoundUp helped, but there are still areas that I felt I couldn't safely spray. Must weed. SOON.
The last photo is from just outside the kitchen door...
Out through the patio "door"...
Down to where the arbor will someday be wreathed in exuberant roses...
(Let's be optimistic!)
This concludes today's garden survey. ;o)
Thank you for joining me!
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Edited to add:
Ugh. I see that Flickr has gone and messed up their embed function. Now they decorate every single embedded photo with (tacky, obtrusive) "attribution" info-- which just so happens to include their own precious logo. That may be fine for people who only embed photos in Facebook posts, but for bloggers? NO. We don't need attribution. The whole darn blog is mine, so why would I want my title/photographer info plastered all over each individual photo?
I am not impressed, have expressed my displeasure to Flickr, and hope they'll provide an easy way to opt out of this new "feature". If not, I'll be finding another way to do my photos for blog posts.
Apparently you can mess around and remove the offending snippets of code, but seriously, who wants to do that for each and every blessed photo in a photo-heavy blog?! (I may bite the bullet and try, though, in which case any reader will be confused and wonder what on earth I was griping about this time, since everything looks exactly the same as usual...(g))
Edited again to add:
Ok, I did go back and fix it. Once you know how, it doesn't take that long to do, but I stand by my opinion that this was a stupid move on Flickr's part. Staff says there are plans to eventually "reveal" ways to opt out of the "upgrade" (in the "share" dialog box). I can only hope they'll do that soon and that it won't be too messy of a process. I'm just very frustrated by this need of so many tech companies to constantly "improve" things that weren't broken to begin with-- and often without any warning at all to their customers. In this case, why not wait to unveil the crappy new upgrade until the opt-out option was also available? (Hoping we wouldn't notice?)
Anyway, for the time being, if you're in the same boat, you can change the "true" to "false" in the HTML coding. It seemed to work for this blog post (as far as I can tell).
