Portfolio:

“A Breath of Fresh Air”

I am hurting today.

I admit I am clinically diagnosed with a “must finish the project today” disorder, which for me, inevitably translates into…”must have a box of advil” later the same night syndrome. What can you do?

We are all wired differently, my impatience  just seems to have more of a propensity to hurt muscles more than other more leisurely approaches to work .

I have shoveled so much decomposed granite into my backyard over the past years,  that I now have a strange sense of deja vu every time I start hacking on the north face of a new delivery. My wheelbarrow (an old friend that I used to tease before it gave me a bloody shin) now lets out a disgruntled, audible “sigh” (language sensored for the purpose of this family blog) as soon as it hears the “Custom Stone” delivery truck pull up to my house. It is like it recognizes the sound of the bobcat engine, and immediately deflates it’s only tire in stubborn defiance!

Interestingly, I inevitably seem to get into these mad, shoveling endeavors in the heart of the Texas / Mars summer – but do I care, not at all.
Some things just can’t wait. I know, I know, you are saying “but he would be able to see the backbone and form of his yard better in the winter months when the structure of a garden can be better appreciated, blah blah”, I totally agree, but if I waited till then, I would have lost the creative spark and the immediate energy to scale Kilimanjaro’s north face…and both of these sensibilities for me are fleeting at best. I need to take advantage of both of them as, and when they arise…so I do, now where is that iced turban?
(see earlier post for the definition of an iced turban)


This area needed refinement and structure

This bed is in the way of the new pathway, it has to go. – I was never very fond of it anyway, always an awkward spot to walk around. I pulled up the over used Home Depot rocks and created a new wider path…
Gentlemen, we can rebuild the pathways. We have the technology. We can build it better than it was before, better, wider, curvier”.

I caught Steve early this morning running laps around the new paths.

Here it is with the figure eight bed removed, I feel better already.

Ahh, so much better


The new pathway, even without boulders to define the edges, creates a more balanced orderly scene.



And here it is with the moss boulders in place. Here is my new central bed with a lot of space for future planting! I had to get another ton and a half of boulders in addition to the ones I got delivered!

Here is the feeder pond, complete with face-lift.

Picture taken from up in the Post Oak

Looking down on the ornamental grasses and my “octopus” windchimes.


Okay, so I am even bored at this point of looking at pathways! enough is enough!  But before we leave all these pathway scenes, tell me you noticed the red-neck tape fix inside my red-neck pool…classy!

Other Oddities in the yard right now:

Is he making fun of us Charlie?

This hedgehog errr cone flower looks like it has been set on fire! I do not dead head, the birds like to munch on these.


Alice in Wonderland toadstools in my Canna container

Flowering Fennel in front of the Agave pups


Looking up through the Papyrus


Texture on a Banana leaf looks almost manufactured.

Golden Miscanthus seed head against silver Artemesia

“Hey, look over there, you get a really good view of the new pathways from up here!”

Stay Tuned for:

“A Garden in the Works”


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intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by  late  (and extremely unpleasant)
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