Desertscape shout out: a what-what for my CA and AZ peeps!

I just wanted to throw some encouraging words out there to my ladies in the hot lands to the south.

Kelly, don't go pulling weeds in the hot sun when there is raging bees' nest in the yard next to you. That sounds a bit daunting and dangerous. I would recommend spending some time as the sun goes down when the bees are inactive. I also, and don't laugh, recommend approaching the area near the bees with a tennis racket. It sounds cruel, but it is your best defense against the stinging neighbors. Also, in some areas, you can reach out to your local authorities if the neighbors' bee problem poses danger.

In the mean time, http://www.abolishpestcontrol.com/ would be a great recommendation to give to your neighbors. It's like a private sector animal control.... Just a thought.

Melissa, I have high hopes that you're bird of paradise is still alive and doing better. I haven't seen any update from you. Don't be discouraged if your plant isn't doing better. I'm sure that if what you've done so far hasn't helped, talking with it daily will. That's all it takes sometimes: communing with your plants. I know that it sounds cheesy or dumb, but it works.

Best of luck to you folks who have to brave the extreme heat. Know that I'm jealous of you. Ooh, and if you get a wild hair to plant something on my behalf, please, make it a bougainvillea!!

Sprucing up the address: a little mosaic goes a long way

When we first moved into our house, our address numbers were boring, plain and excessively standard. They also weren't the best quality: spray painted wood. I decided that it's time to fix this and move the eye-catchingness of the garden up the house. How will I do such a thing?

I have created mosaic house numbers. I think they are looking pretty amazing. They are flashy, one-of-a-kind and hopefully pretty durable.

I started with blank wooden tiles. I drew out the numbers on them and then tried a few different color combinations. I decided on solid colors around white numbers. The numbers really pop! From there, I started to lay out the broken glass to fill in the space. In fear of making a big mistake, I laid each of the designs first before adhering them to the wood. Once I was certain of what I wanted, I used an amazing tacky glue to hold them fast. It wasn't messy and it cured very quickly.

Today, I am drilling holes to hang the new tiles and then staining their edges and grouting them. I'll post another blog about that once it's completed. I really enjoyed putting these mosaics together. It was an exercise in patience and a stretch in creativity. Glass is really a lot of fun to work with and once this project is completed, I've got another in mind.

Bulbs are put to bed...

So, I had a bustling weekend. There was lots to do in real life and tons to do in the garden. My tulips had finished blooming a few weeks ago and their remaining foliage was finally turning yellow. If you recall, that was the key indicator I was waiting for. So how did it go?? It went.

I'd read a few different account of people pulling their bulbs simply by grabbing the stalks and yanking them up out of the soil. I tried that with one individual plant...and failed. The thing is, because I waited as long as I did to uproot the bulbs, they had time to multiply and build on themselves. This is great because it will increase the number of blooms next year, but this is tough because I ended up tilling most of the beds. I was really careful to not disturb the summer bulbs that were in the same bed, but well...yeah, they got disturbed a bit. I got the soil all back in place and added some nice new mix into it to liven it back up. Hopefully, my summer bulbs will be happy with me.

As for all of the many tulips I pulled, they are being safely stored on my patio, out of sunlight, but where rain can fall on them. All of research that I did mentioned either soil or sawdust to put them in, but I am trying something different. I wove some stalks and foliage together to form a nice nest for the bulbs. I sprinkled soil in with them too for good luck. I think this is going to be a success.

Now that this is done, it's time to focus on the summer. It sure isn't sunny and warm in Seattle right now, so it's tough to find inspiration, but I'm going to make something great!