Tallulah House

Good morning! Giddy with the excitement of having the problem with the camera resolved, I'm posting more pics. These are of the yard project upon which Chris and I have been working for the last few months. I feel compelled to explain that there was a LOT of deferred maintenance on Tallulah that we had to catch up on and so the yard really suffered from indifference. Oh, the grass was always cut and there were flowers growing in the window boxes, but that was it.

When we first moved in there were azaleas growing everywhere. Well, Chris and I don't really like azaleas (I know, I know: its the South. We're all supposed to adore azaleas-- just call us aberrations!), so I did kind of a dumb thing. Are you ready for this?

I ripped them all out and gave them away.

Yep, without a coherent plan or any thought of how much HARD WORK preparing the beds would be I just dug up all of the azaleas, leaving a huge Pit of Doom in front of Tallulah. She must have been so ashamed! I gamely went to work out there, tilling the concrete-like soil (which I could only do for about 5 minutes at a time before I had to stop and rest), and amending the soil with Mr. Natural , and planting ALL THE WRONG THINGS.

*sigh*

Yes, because it was autumn by the time I got the beds ready most of the leaves had fallen and it looked really sunny there. So I chose all sun plants... and quickly had to make changes when the leaves grew back. Yes, I can be dumb that way :) A-hem. Well, enough about that. *squirms uncomfortably*

In any event, we finally got the time and resources to begin working on the yard. I convinced Chris that raised beds were the way to go, we ordered pallet-loads of stone and dumptruck loads of soil, and Chris got to work building them. My dear husband says that if we were super heroes we'd be known as Vision Woman and Detail Man because I always see exactly how things should be and he sees how to make it happen :) I call that teamwork, people!

Below are some pics of what we've accomplished over the last few months.

A shot of the yard from below. All of that dirt was necessary to build up the sloping yard.

A closer shot of the raised beds, which shows you how its constructed.




A view from the front porch




A closeup of one of the beds-- we still had bald spots that needed filling



A closeup of one of the window boxes




A closeup of one of the urns in front of the steps



A closer view of the rose garden-- Chris has since added a set of fence rails for Bob Marley, the big lump of a rose bush near the back




Closeup of Bob Marley. He grew from a cutting of one of my grandmother's rosebushes... and grew... and grew



Another view of the raised beds




We're planning to add a curved cobblestone path between the two raised beds, which will lead to my car. Our goal is to do that in September-- we actually suckered some of our friends into helping us, muwahahahaha! I'll post pics of it when its finished.

Have a great day,
Kimberley