Good evening Friends,
Here it is the end of another Monday. Today was 'errand day'and we're glad that is over with. We do not like to shop.
Thought I'd share the latest project we've been working on as it is 'more than less' done.
I shrunk the bed around the ficus tree, then we gathered different pieces of patio pavers that we could use to fill in and enlarge the already existing patio. Now, let me remind you, that most of what we do is done on a 'shoestring', we recycle, and we've curbside shopped our whole 41 years together, so our grounds and cottage and we ourselves, are somewhat eclectic and eccentric, weird I guess you could say. Certainly NOT normal. :-)
Back to the project. We jacked and cut out the iron post to the left of the picture.
Click on pictures to enlarge.
I dug out roots, and took out ferns and other things that had overgrown the area.
I laid some curbside shopped border stones and put found rocks from TN on top.
After laying the various patio pavers and pieces, we needed to make a 'stop' for our driveway gate. I thought of using this old piece of concrete from around the 1920's. It's a pretty, weathered piece and we just had it back in my potting area. We set the pieces lined up on top of each other, then drove a pipe down the middle. We needed some sort of finial. DH came up with this old white or pot metal piece, that was in several pieces. I loved it and laughed because we are so unconventional. We can also loop a piece of something or other from the gate to this piece, to hold the gate in place.
I love the details of this piece.
I am a collector and noticer of hearts, but did not see these until I downloaded the pictures to my computer. I had to go out and take this picture so that you all could see them too. This is looking into the pitcher, so that you see both hearts.
Now, here we have the south side of this patio area. There had been some scruffy vines growing on the wire fencing, but it didn't look great at all.
We took out the iron post because it was crooked from hurricane winds, the fencing needed straightening and leveling. I went out early in the morning to see what 2x4's I could find to use on the fencing, as they were cut sections of fencing (about 24"wide) that someone had thrown away and we needed to tie them all together better than they were. With three hurricanes blowing them every which way, it was time to get them back in shape. They still have many years of use left. I saw some metal studs that we had in our stash and came in to see what DH thought of using them. He said 'excellent idea'. These fit right over the 2x3's that had been used on the fencing. He drilled holes into the studs, then screwed them to the fencing after we raised and leveled them.
Here it is after I took out the existing bed.
Here it is afterwards. A double layer of bricks with the rocks and coral that had been the border, now place on top of bricks. I used a section of green lattice from our neighbor, and moved in potted and other plants to the bed. It still needs tweaking.
I was inspired by a post I read somewhere in a FL gardening blog, about making a wall of air plants, so started by putting ones that I had growing in shrubbery. I'll keep filling it in as I find them here and there. These particular air plants get pretty purple and reddish/pink flowers.
I hope to get out there tomorrow to do a little more work.
It is amazing what we can do now that we have cooler weather.
Zone 10 ~ s.e. FL
