Archive for the 'Gardening/Yard' Category

Jan 11 2009

Protected: M shares with his brother, Bouche

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Oct 20 2008

Our boxwood shrubs-a year later

After purchasing and planting our ‘Winter Gem’ boxwood shrubs from Lowe’s last year (See last year’s blog post here), we are happy to see that our border experiment is working. To start, we planted what we called the “Boxwood shade gardens,” one on each side of our front steps to fill in the area that [...]

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May 12 2008

A closeup look at the Boxwood shade gardens

Published by under Gardening/Yard

The Boxwood shade gardens at our house, which flank the front steps, are the final vision for our replacement of the original Yew hedges that were here when we bought our house. I’ve blogged about them before, but wanted to provide some links to images and show the original plan we worked from. Jacob’s Ladder [...]

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May 07 2008

A new front walkway

Published by under Gardening/Yard

Red square pavers are kind of boring for a walkway. At least, we thought so. One of the many projects this spring was to replace the lame red stone pavers in the front with irregular shaped pieces of gray slate, some with orange streaks and tinges. This was to create a more organic looking walkway. [...]

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May 05 2008

Finishing the shade gardens

Published by under Gardening/Yard

Save for a few final touches, the Boxwood shade gardens and the Maple shade garden are finished. Last week, the top soil (Loom/Loam) finally arrived and I was able to fill the raised Maple shade garden planter. Once that step was completed, I planted the flowers and bushes that had previously arrived and which were [...]

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Apr 01 2008

A jack-hammering, planter-box building, flower planting weekend

Published by under Gardening/Yard

This weekend, I tackled a number of yard projects that had to get done early this spring in order to be ready for other projects to come when the weather warmed. While it was a bit chilly (40 to 50 degrees) and there was still snow on the ground, it was warm enough to break [...]

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Sep 12 2007

A dash of Gloucester granite to the stone wall

We made more progress on our stone wall this week. A colleague and good friend of mine lives near some deserted granite quarries in Gloucester. After talking about the slow progress of our stone wall, she offered all the rocks I could fit in my car from the huge pile of rock and granite near [...]

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Aug 07 2007

Finally, the boxwood shrubs are planted!

Two months after making my original order for 25 boxwood shrubs with Lowes, they finally arrived. It was the wrong cultivar and size, but as it is August, with the growing season closing fast and the fact that this variety is still evergreen in our particular zone, I threw up my hands and bought them [...]

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Jul 03 2007

Planting wintergreen: Our first experience with ground cover

Published by under Gardening/Yard

There are some interesting dynamics around the perimeter of our yard because we live on a corner lot. Along the two sides that face the street, there is a lot of foot traffic, dog walkers and people who like to park their cars partially on the grass. The people walking around the neighborhood aren’t an [...]

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Jul 02 2007

Retraining the leader of our Japanese Cherry Tree

Published by under Gardening/Yard

Trees often have a mind of their own, as our Japanese Flowering Cherry tree demonstrated when it was planted on the east side of our yard, in our front lawn. The leader, or main part of the trunk that typically extends straight up was disappointingly small and one of the branches grew large and strong [...]

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