Several weeks ago, I showed Inga’s garden, promising a review of her latest project – a roof to provide shade for her patio. I just received the pictures for your enjoyment. As you can see, her father and brother-in-law pitched in to help. Inga and her sister kept everyone supplied in nourishment and beverage.
There’s something wrong with this picture! While we struggle to get through a drought here in Paradise, my daughter’s Boise patio looks more tropical than our own tropics! Of course, a mister system helps.
I am impressed with her ability to make such a small space hold so much and still look spacious. I can’t seem to get that effect on an entire acre.
Even the necessary utilitarian area is beautiful.
So many beautiful things growing!
I keep trying to get a few tomatillos to grow. She has no problem.
Her fruit trees keep her well supplied.
With so many things growing . . .
. . . it’s a wonder she has a chance to sit here and relax!
As always, I get lots of ideas for my own patio and garden.
Mahalo nui loa, Inga!
As I work in my own garden, I watch some plants thrive while others struggle for survival. So I love to see the gardens other people put together.
In the past, I’ve written about my daughter’s small historic home in Boise, Idaho. I’ve shown her garden as it makes the seasonal transitions through snow and spring. Each time I see her newest pictures I get ideas and inspiration.
When she visited me here in Hawai`i this past spring, she installed the beginnings of a new drip system, which I was able to expand over the following months. Now, even though it might be a lost cause here on my lava field, I’m trying to figure out how I can put in a brick patio!
People talk about edible gardens, but my daughter has taken it to a new level. Without a lot of front yard space, she utilizes the space between her downtown sidewalk and the street to great advantage. How in the world does she keep anyone from helping themselves?
I have a couple of blueberry bushes in my garden that were designed for subtropical climates, but they don’t look nearly as healthy as these.
Every spare inch of space is used for flowers, veggies and herbs.
Looks like she has an eager helper.
Even fruit trees have found their home in her tiny garden!
I really do envy her little lean-to greenhouse.
She recently added a roof overhang for her patio so she can sit in the shade and sip tea while her drip system does the watering for her. I don’t have pictures of that yet, but I’m sure you will see those soon. In the meantime, enjoy this stroll through a small garden in Boise.
Relocating rocks can be either hard labor, or you can look at it as good exercise! I choose to think of it as a way to get in my weight lifting. This weekend, I put on my heavy duty garden gloves and started creating a spot in the sun for my three new boysenberry plants.
Soon after I moved into this house, I created a side path out of cinder and 12-inch pavers with the help of a friend. The photo above shows the path before we added the pavers, but gives an idea of where they would be going – fairly close alongside the house. This was also before the lattice work was put in around the base of the house.
Boysenberries need to be in full sun. There are many places around my acre that are in full sun, but only this one place where they would have something to climb on without building a frame. For several reasons, that wasn’t an option at this time.
So my first task was to move the pavers to create an area for the berries. Here is the new path, curved to leave a planting spot.
A couple weeks ago, a friend helped me build an addition to the chicken run. The “girls” seem happy with their new space. Here is a view from the front toward the water tank.
This is a closer view from the other side. They all gathered to see what I was doing. As you can see, there is a little more to be done to finish off the top. They love scratching around in the lava, especially after I’ve tossed in a bunch of weeds.
As I was moving the rocks for the boysenberry bed, I found several flat rocks that looked like pieces of concrete from the original construction period that had been stained by the red concrete. I pulled those out and created a path in some of the beds in the patio. I’ll dump in either cinder or soil and let something like a low-growing herb of some sort or alyssum fill in the cracks.
The left side of this path is unplanted, so it’s full of weeds right now. You can barely see the right side where I have arugula and other salad greens planted. Original steps at the lower end of this path were put in by my two daughters last March.
While I was taking pictures with my new Nikon Coolpix S610, I thought you might like to see the back half of my acre. I stood at the door of my shed and took several shots of it so you can see the potential for more growing space. When I figure out how to use the video ability of this camera, I’ll do a sweep around the property. Until then, just pretend that this is one panoramic view, from left to right. If you want to see a larger picture of each one, just click on it.
Here is a close-up of where the patio is from the shed, shielded by a stand of wild grass. When the grass is pulled, I will plant more flowers and veggies in that area, as well. So many ideas, so little time and energy!
Addendum – just before I posted this, I made a few changes to my boysenberry bed. I removed the rocks from the outside of the pathway, dug three holes with the help of a friend who recently moved to Hawaii from Washington. In another post, I’ll tell you about her and how this blog prompted her to move here.
She and I dug three deep holes, then she held the plant in place while I dumped in my combination of soil and chicken manure. We put rocks around the outside to help hold the soil and water. New growth was already beginning to show on the roots!
The Hawai`ian Spring comes sooner than in most parts of the country. Still, I am always a little surprised when something actually starts to grow and bloom. This past week I’ve been weeding, planting, while ignoring a few of my older starts. What a surprise when I took time to look around! Here are a few of my surprises.
The little iris plants I put in as starters from my friend, Velvet, have grown, multiplied and bloomed! Here is a “before” picture, taken in October, 2008.
This Week of Surprises wouldn’t be complete without “before” and “now” shots of my patio. The first one was taken in March 2008, almost a year ago when my daughters and son-in-law were here. I described their work in this November 2008 post.
You can see how much has grown in, and also how much more there is to fill in. I have a long way to go, but it’s nice to have a cup of tea at my little table while I relax and admire the things that have grown.
The opening photo was taken on New Year’s Day 2009. The fig was still very small then. My old heart just sings with pleasure at seeing plants finally start to bloom and grow.
Among all the growth that has taken place I find that seeds are starting to produce, also. This purple cosmos is one of my favorites. It comes from seeds given me from a friend’s garden.
Of course, there is the geranium, a plant that has almost weed status in some areas of California, but a treasure brought inside over the snowy winter in other areas, like Rhode Island. Their brilliant colors add much to a garden. I have red ones and violet ones, but the delicate pink is a real marvel. A tiny cutting was planted near a pink plumeria and the two should present quite a show later in the spring.
