Sadie's Thrilled To Walk & A Lot Of Landscaping Progress

With Heidi refusing to go outside after lunch, Sadie and Stella were already outside starting their walk, whether I intended to come or not. With the winds still strong, I could barely feel the humidity rising as we finished the walk. What a relief to feel 15°-18° cooler today. With the ground really soft I had some big plans for later this afternoon.

I had barely walked to the corner of the house when Sadie stopped to see if I was going to join her for a walk or would she and Stella take one on their own. She was between a sprint and hopping all the way from the yard to the field ... thrilled she was getting her walk.

Like after any other strong storm, the winds were still strong today. It wasn't a cool breeze but one that felt good being just a few degrees cooler than the temps. With my shoes already soaked and squishing water out of the tops of them, I was hoping this wind would hang around to help dry my shoes out this afternoon.

Sadie wasn't the only one excited about walk. Stella walked into the back of my knee to let me know I needed to step off the path so she could run by me. She NEVER moves out of her way to go around someone or another hound ... she steps on them to get by. She continued past Sadie and took the early lead of the walk.

Although my location was clear of any pending storms, the skies to the north and south of us looked as if they were still having big storms. Would all of the rain last night wash away the scents Sadie and Stella were use to or bring out that many more new ones for them?

They have always been a good 'team' when exploring the field.

Since it has been a long time since our last really good rain, the ground was still quite firm after a couple of inches of rain the past 12 hours. I could tell the field grew even while I slept. I was surprised though it wasn't muddy as we walked.

I did not have to do much herding of the hounds today. They were in continuous motion, getting all of their nose work in. It's good exercise for them and they also get me out walking a mile or two per day.

It's amazing just how fast this field is growing and all the rain last night increased the speed of that growth. Looking at pictures from a year ago that Facebook automatically provides if I posted one, the field was taller but they also cut it earlier last year.

I could barely see my shadow in the back of the field but I could not only feel it getting warmer but I could see just a glimpse of sunshine. Combine that with the humidity, I knew I'd be shutting the windows and turning on the AC as soon as we got back to the house.

Stella is showing me what I am feeling from the little amount of sunshine, is right. She is already panting heading back to the house.

Slightly veering off to the center of the field, she abruptly made a turn in my direction without me saying a word. She must have thought I knew the shortest way back to cold rooms.

Hopefully the wind will dry out the shoes. They are made for all kinds of weather, they are built to get wet. I am on my second pair of these and will try to buy the exact same model later this summer. Yet, this pair has a lot of miles left on them.

With all the plant ideas giving me some motivation of sorts, I decided it was time to pull out the Windex and clean the bird crap off of my 30+ year old thermometer. It might be as old as the house but so far I can confirm it's at least 30 years old.

Before

Now that it's clean it should have another 10 years added to its lifespan. It does not need a battery, isn't wireless ... just a good old fashion thermometer.

After

By 1pm I was pretty sure I had the plan for the new landscaping project firm in my mind and where I wanted to plant everything. With the ground much softer than yesterday afternoon, I took advantage of that and planted all the plants I bought the other day.

I'll wait and add some more as I go along. I need to find a place locally that has the Hostas in stock, plus a couple of new suggestions today ... Marigolds and Nasturtiums.

The plans were to replace the old iron carport supports next summer, once I decided to either go with new rod iron or change to wood posts. In the meantime a blog reader suggested I use Hollyhock to grow around and through the carport supports in front. Sounds like a good idea.

As usual once I come to a decision, in this case knowing where to put each plant that I had bought, I want to do it as soon as possible. With all the rain last night and earlier this morning would the ground be too wet or muddy to plant flowers?

My two assistants wanted to make you think they had important parts in digging the holes ... but while I did the manual labor of digging and planting ... they were out back eating that fresh mud that the moles had pushed up.

It didn't take long for Stella to lose interest in the job at hand. Once I told her I had to wash her nose off, she decided taking a siesta and not moving was a better idea. After all she had a bath just a few days ago.

The job didn't take me long but it was long enough for her to switch positions while sleeping and a deep sleep that she didn't know I was taking her picture.

I like to make sure the shovel is clean after it is used.

It's hard to imagine this Hemerocallis 'Happy Returns' Daylilly will grow to 14"-18" tall and 22"-26" spread ... If it does it will be perfect for the far right corner if you are looking at the front of the house.

I wanted a Azalea 'Girard's Hot Shot' just right of where Heidi goes from the carport to the front of the yard. She has already found it different since her Yews are gone. This should help bring some color to the front of the carport.

I forgot to mention the first hole I dug had dry dirt believe it or not after all the rain we had. It might have helped that it was under the roof overhang. The dirt texture was the same as peat moss.

It looks bare now but once that Azalea matures, enough of that wall to the right of the window will be covered. I not only wanted to keep the steps open but also the vent for the crawlspace. I might put a potted plant there later. Remember my septic tank is right below that window, 3' from the last step and 6' out from the foundation. That 2nd stone is about 9" behind the septic tank inlet that they would use to pump it.

Here is a closer look at the Azalea, with a lot of room to grow

I decided to go with another Azalea in the right corner instead of a yellow Daylily. That will be two reds on each end. Besides adding mulch here, I'll add more small annuals later on or mums this fall.

I think this will fill the corner nice, unless Ethan gave me some wrong dimensions when it is fully grown.

I thought the Daylily might spread out and cover a little of the entry to the crawlspace. I cant remember if it was the Yellow or the Purple de Oro. Either one will be easy to brush back so I can get down into the crawlspace when needed. I might add something smaller next spring or mums this fall.

Here I might have made a mistake and may have to replant the Azalea to the right of the dish bracket. When I sat it there it looked too open left of the dish so I moved just left of the bracket. After it's fully grown it should cover a lot of the dish bracket so it will not look as bad as it does now. You have to admit though ... that dish is storm proof.

So we can remember just how small it was when I planted it. Of course I'll be adding more topsoil and mulch in this area between the gutter downspout and Azalea along with anything showing dirt.

Early this morning I decide the Purple de Oro and Hemerocallis Happy Returns Daylily might work really well hiding my satellite dish pole for my internet service. I didn't want to go right of the pole due to the underground cable a few inches below the grass.

Based on what I have read, both of these should grow enough to hide a lot of the pole but not all of it.

This has been here since I bought the house in 1997. A few times when I have let it grow longer/taller it has pink blossoms. I do not know what it is. I usually cut it back every fall but that means I don't have flowers on it every year.

Even one year it was burned almost to the ground when I had a leaf fire get out of control. You know how I am about fires in the fall. I was so lazy that year I actually thought I'd burn the leaves I had raked right there at the base of the small bank ... poor decision and one never repeated.  LOL

After I found Sadie out back, I called her in. She actually had been walking around and at times on the Azaleas as I planted them. She was more than curious what they were and what I was doing ... until she got bored with it.

Stella went to sleep but Sadie had to roam.

After she inspected my work along with my 'rough layout' of the sidewalk ... she thought it might be best if I would add one more square stone to it and also put one of those gray stones in the middle of the red ones. 

I'll spend some time this week getting the stones level since they are just tossed in the general area so I could see what they would look like. It looks pretty empty with the full grown Yews there but I see a lot of potential from what I have done so far.

One new idea I had as I was looking through these photos ... that picture right above with Sadie standing by the covered car ... just to the right of the potted Geranium is a spot where the rain over flowing from the gutter spreads out all of the mulch.

Since it has done that over and over for 20 years, making no difference what I do to the ground, more mulch or clean the gutters ... I am going to buy and place a large rock there for some added decor and a place where the water can run on all it wants.

I still have a lot of open space to plant smaller annuals or even small perennials. Or I can leave it open with mulch and some large rocks. I think I am off to a good start even if I don't have a clue about what I'm doing and it took just a little over an hour to plant everything.

Another good day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

I Found Out What Rain Was

I made a comment Saturday night over on Al's blog, The Bayfield Bunch, "rain??? rain??? what's that?" ... well starting about 12:30am local time last night I found out really quick what rain was, plus loud thunder, bright lightning and high winds. Even Stella stood up from sleeping to check to see if everything was okay.

I was glad to see it happen. All the storms forecasted in previous weeks were all north of us. My front yard was getting brown plus I knew it would cool those temperatures we had lived with the past week or two. It looks like one project will be moved up on my 'to do' list. Dig up the old drainage system I installed years ago and re-install something new since this is consistently having standing water after heavy rains.

I could feel the rain lightly falling on me as I tried to get some pictures after the storms this morning. Sadie didn't believe me when I told her it was still raining and we could not go for the morning walk yet. She had to find out for herself and once she did, she moved to the carport under cover, while I risked getting wet taking photos.

My pictures this morning are a mix from my Nikon D3200 and my iPhone 6s, see if you can tell the difference.

I slept through all of the storms that continued throughout the night. Based on the tweets from my local Utility Company this morning, power is out in a lot of places except mine. There are reports of a lot of trees that were blown down. Luckily I didn't hear any of those scary "cracking" noises you hear before a tree falls. Yet the storms cleared out some of the dead limbs on my Mahogany trees in back.

At this point in time as Sadie and I walked around the backyard checking for any damages, she still thought there might be an outside chance for a walk this morning. Wunderground and Intellicast are showing the rain should stop around 1pm ... I'll put on my boots made for hiking in wet fields and we will take off on a walk after their lunchtime kibble.

Since in the past I have always had my potted flowers destroyed by high winds and thunderstorms, I put my two pots of Geraniums and Elfins inside the carport away from the blowing rain that would take place later on, just as I predicted. Maybe I should apply for one of those tv weatherperson positions since I seem to be more accurate.

No damage this morning from the blowing rain last night. I think I see in that top picture a little improvement from the way the flowers looked when I potted them yesterday afternoon.

As I stepped outside into the light rain to check on the Azaleas that I had sitting in possible locations, two out of four of them had blown over. It was good I moved the flowers into the carport when I did last night before the storms started.

See those steps that are never used except by a lost stranger every year or so? I plan to keep those open with a stone walkway leading to them. I am trying to decide whether to put the walkway in front or in back of the Azaleas. I'm thinking in front of them will be the best and I'll move the Azalea a little closer to the house. I have decided to move that one in the picture over to just right of the small kitchen window. New positions are pictured below.

After more reading on the internet this morning about Azaleas plus what Ethan told me at the landscaping biz ... their root system will be very shallow, only a foot deep. They will grow as large as I let them. Since I bought the "hot shots", they will bloom into my favorite color ... or one of my favorite colors ... red.

So I started looking at the front of my bare house again and came up with a different idea about placement this morning. I moved the Azaleas to where I think will be their final resting place. The forth one you can barely see is right in front of the Directv dish bracket, which will grow enough to hide that bracket.

One reason I don't like Sycamore trees ... even after cleaning out my gutters of their bark just last week, my front gutter plugged up again last night by their bark and possible tree branches ... you can see where the rain ran over the gutter and moved the mulch around.

While Stella scratched, Sadie stood listening to me mumble plant ideas out loud to myself as I took photos. I have two Yellow Daylilies and I have been told not only do they have a deep root system but you can't get rid of them once you plant them. They keep coming back.

So I came up for an idea about them.

I will plant one to the left of the porch in the corner. I'll keep it cut back so it does not take over the porch and maybe just a little above the bottom of my low living room window.

The other one I am going to plant in front of the pole that holds my HughesGen5 satellite dish for my internet. I'll let it grow somewhat out of control where it will add some bright yellow to the corner of the house and hopefully grow tall enough to hide most of the pole the dish sits on.

With deep root system it can enjoy going as deep as it wants and wrap around the 3' feet of concrete the dish installer used when setting the pole in the ground.

Or I could trade the yellow Daylily by the porch with the Azalea that is on the south corner of the house ... that way both yellow flowers would be 'bookends' with the reds between them.

In between these 6 different plants I'll fill in with Hostas and other annuals. At the same time I'll continue to learn more about this landscaping stuff and add things as I get ideas. Feel free to comment or send me emails on my idea or any new ideas on your own. I have almost ruled out any kind of bushes or shrubs.

For those readers that receive my blog by email, I apologize for all the spelling errors I did not catch. I've corrected them after seeing what was sent out automatically.

It's 20° cooler this morning here in the wet 'tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Planting Flowers Stopped After 20 Minutes

I underestimated the heat yesterday, forgetting just how hot these 'dog days' get and for how long. I was willing to wait until 9:30pm for it to cool down for a 2nd walk of the day ... but it never happened. The hounds seemed satisfied sleeping in air conditioned air even past that 10pm hour.

So this morning the daily routine changed a little. It didn't help that I slept a little later than planned but being retired I can do that and do on occasion. To get started as early as possible we went for the walk this morning before coffee was made. That's a drastic change from the norm.

With the temps at 86° at 8:23am, and Wunderground telling me today would be hotter than yesterday (how could it?), it was still hot and muggy when we started in a lot of shade. Stella showed a little extra energy but I was to find out later it was only to get the walk finished as soon as possible.

I knew that when I caught her trotting and not stopping for her daily natural protein supplement in the field that she was serious about making this one of the fastest walks in her history.

As we walked I thought of my plans for today. The first thing before anything else was considered .. make coffee ... drink coffee. With my mind scrambling with landscaping ideas that I had not planned on, I am moving what I bought around to different locations. I am looking on the internet to see how big these new plants get ... so I might only rake the new top soil into the clay dirt while filling in the three holes where root balls once were.

Even that might not get finished today. If I can wait until Monday, the temps will drop about 10° and make it bearable enough to work outside. Now that I have bought a few plants the mystery and confusion in my mind is over where to put them. How much, where and how to work around the side walk of stepping stones to the porch.

Granted this is a very poor time to be not only planting new plants/flowers but also a very poor time to be looking to buy new plants/flowers. The landscaping biz that is full of people and not enough parking spots in the spring was vacant as I parked yesterday to see what I could round up.

It's so late in the season that all perennials are 50% off with the annuals being not only small but free. There is still enough life left in them they can bloom for the rest of the summer. From Google Images it looks like the 8 different plants I bought can grow fairly large so that also makes me hesitant where to put them.

I want to use the  four Azalea Hot Shots (red) as end pieces. Right now I am thinking at the two corners of the house, one on just on the left side of the porch and the last one I am not sure. I don't want to block the porch steps this time, nor do I want to block that big vent in foundation that works with the crawlspace.

Also this time of year, they did not have a lot to work with. All of their greenhouses were empty, not to be filled again until next spring. They had some 'Happy Returns' Daylily, so I picked up a couple that will be bright yellow eventually. They had a small amount of 'Purple de Oro' Daylily's available so I picked up a couple of them ... while not knowing yet where I will plant them.

Here are some photos from our Friday morning walk that I forgot I had until late last night. I remembered them as I was doing my daily uploads into Google Photos and Flickr late last night. They were taken with the Nikon D3200 but my 2 hours of outside work and using the iPhone camera yesterday caused a lapse of memory that I had these photos.

I asked about boxwood hedges for the front of the carport but they were not in stock until next spring. It was suggested that Hostas would be nice and the pictures were fantastic showing me what they would look like but they were also out of stock at the local biz. The mature sizes of hydrangeas and rhododendrons make me hesitate on those.

They are are a few days away from some bright yellow mums, so I'll get some of those to fill two of the large pots I have from when I bought their mums previously. I am thinking if I let these flowers grow into the large sizes they are capable of, they could cover a lot of the exposed house under that small kitchen window. I could still put in a small stone walkway toward the porch.

I wasn't planning on doing this type of landscaping this summer. Although I still had indecision on what to do with the Yews. Recent internet searches were now saying they were deep rooted, different from what I read last winter. At least they are no longer setting 3' above my septic tank so that concern has been removed but it looks so empty now in front of the house.

Like I told the guy helping me with choices and answering my questions, the past the annuals I bought were either destroyed by hard blowing rain by thunderstorms or the heat would kill them in July and August. Maybe I can keep that from happening in the future.

I gave Stella another bath yesterday afternoon. I was hoping to see fleas on the bottom of the bathtub after she was rinsed but that didn't happen. I was curious because I was sure I was bitten by a flea the other night while sitting next to her on the couch. I sprinted for the Benadryl cream while she continued her deep sleep like nothing happened.

The field is starting to grow with more full size butterflies and more bees hovering around the purple buds.

It was still very hot and very muggy yesterday with the first half of the field in the shade. We will have a break in high temperatures in the next few days. Those mid 80's will feel like winter after what we have experienced the past week.

I'm not sure whether to post this now at 10:11am and call it a day for more blogging or save it as a draft in hopes something worthy will take place where a few more photos can be added. We will see .....

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As you can see, I waited to post this after the hounds had their lunch kibble. The possibility of getting more photos for this post, maybe some more commentary was cut short. I am not complaining because it's just the way it is in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana in July ... but I always add temperature and the heat index to give those readers that have never experienced this type of weather some idea of what it's like.

The temperature was quite a bit cooler than yesterday, holding at 86° but the heat index was 105° ... so the hounds were in no mood for a mid-day walk nor did Heidi want to lay in the grass and soak up some rays. They beat me to the door to get back inside.

I think this picture of Stella gives you an idea of just how miserable it is.

With my mind on my latest project and fighting all urges to hurry up and do everything today (joking), I thought I'd at least put 'punch' super elfins in a pot and match them with the 'white' super elfins. I read the back of the small plastic label telling me to plant them 12" apart ... but when it's way late in the game for a full season of grown, I just wanted to fill the pots with something of color. I'll separate them later if they have a huge growth spurt.

I had a couple of super red geraniums, for what I thought would be one pot worth but when I saw I had too many of the 'white' super elfins there was no other choice but to fix a 2nd pot. I still have one more green pot like this one to put in the bright yellow mums in a week or so.

The problem was I was planning to do just one pot plus spread two bags of top soil in the bed left of the porch. I wanted to fill some of the holes left by the root ball of the yews plus rake it in mixing it with the hard clay dirt. By the time I had emptied the two plastic bags of top soil and raked it in I was hot and wanted stop.

I did not do my first pot of flowers until after spreading the topsoil. I had been outside a total of 13 minutes and was already drenched with sweat and didn't do any really hard labor. It took me 26 minutes to do all three pots and spread 2 bags of top soil.

The cold glass of freshly made ice tea and the AC running at maximum efficiency felt like I had won the million dollar lottery.

I am pretty sure that one of the Azaleas will be planted just a little off center of the DirecTv satellite dish bracket. That way as it grows it will cover the bracket but not as far over to cover the gutter downspout. I am thinking the lilies I bought will be too big and out of control for that small space to the left of the porch.

A long time blog reader, Mary, told me this morning the lily roots will go deep and they will always return if I try to get rid of them. Maybe in front of the carport is a good place for them. That would put them out of the way of the septic tank and tall enough to hide some of the cars parked in the carport.

I still like the idea of different colored hostas used as filler between the azaleas. Maybe the more the more planting I do, I will learn more about these different plants, shrubs and flowers to the point of getting some enjoyment out of it instead of feeling like I'm pulling weeds on a hot day.

The hounds are all in a deep sleep, officially cancelling all afternoon and evening activities here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana, where hot and muggy are the norm for this time of year.