Me and Mr. Bee » our house

garden oaf

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 05 Jun 2010 02:13:15 +0000

I am a big dumb oaf. In April, I was attempting to tie up my only two tomatoes (sweet cherry, and green zebra) to the stakes in the earthbox, and I managed to snap the sweet cherry’s main stem off… There went my first 5 cherry tomatoes.

I planted sweet basil, persian basil, catnip, and lemon balm seeds. They germinated and grew well, until they started disappearing. Over Twitter, Daphne Richards from Central Texas Gardener suggested that I use BT, because it could have been caterpillars eating the seedlings.

I also planted giant white moonflower vine and “pearly gates” morning glory seeds. I thought the whites would look good together, and blend nicely with the violet morning glory volunteers that are going to be spreading more every year if I don’t stop pulling them.

Mistakenly, I only planted one bronze fennel, let’s see how long he lasts before he gets eaten up completely.

One of my favorite things to do, is to look down on the garden from my second story master bedroom window. It’s a good way for me to look at the whole composition. I took some photos of the developing design from above.

new plants and new garden design

Tina Poe Illustration — Mon, 24 May 2010 04:22:07 +0000

In the first week of March, this year, I went out and got two new tomatoes (sweet cherry and green zebra) to put in my Earthbox. Around that time, I also picked up a bronze fennel, and a meyer lemon tree that was full of blooms and several fruit. My dream was to be overflowing with lemons at any given time of the year.

I’ve been taking photos of the garden regularly, and I’ll try to blog about all of them in order. It’ll be helpful to me, keeping track and being organized, while allowing me to go back and compare how things have failed or flourished.

I planted 3 small Mexican feather grass, one of which died promptly. I potted up the Meyer lemon so that I could move him in during the winter. It was covered in fragrant blooms and several baby lemons when I purchased it, but I wasn’t gentle enough when repotting because he dropped all blooms, the fruit, and a large percentage of leaves. It took several weeks of me worrying before new leaves start growing again.

Nothing had quite woken up yet, in the garden, so it was time to get to work. Inspired by garden design portfolios I found online, and with all of the free/found rocks that I had gathered over time (minus the one bag or two of marble chips that I bought), I started creating more shapes and structure to the garden. I picked up some elfin thyme to put between the flat stones (some died, one piece lived, need to keep trying).

The garden bees that I created out of bowling balls were happy, placed in their new surroundings. I added some lanterns on shepherd’s hooks for height. The Buddha statues sits on top of the birdbath now, the birdbath that had developed a crack and I never saw any birds using it, even when there was any water in there. I picked up two lovely Buddha busts and placed them around the herbs, for now.

Whenever I drag David to the nurseries with me I feel guilty and encourage him to pick out some plants that he thinks look interesting. He usually only likes succulents or things he can eat. But this time, he picked out two ‘Blackie’ Sweet Potato Vine, that we put up on the fence. They look great and have already put out violet flowers. Speaking of things to eat, the mint that I got back in 2008 looked pitiful, unrecognizable, and smelled bland. I was afraid to really taste it, worried that there was something horribly wrong with it. Or what if another plant had started to grow in that same spot. Once upon a time I had dreams of being able to use tons of fresh and dried mint in the kitchen… I bought another plant and placed it in a large pot, hoping that it will do better this time. Also not doing great, the catnip that I placed in the same sized pot as the new mint. I haven’t figured out what I’m doing wrong.

learning to garden part 3

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 20:42:20 +0000

Eventually, I was able to clean up the back. I planted Black Krim tomatoes, created a magic circle of rocks that contained the only grass left (barely) growing. But the middle of summer 2009 was here and it was hot, and dry, and hot.

I planted the jasminum sambac, eggplants, bell peppers and small Persian cucumbers.

To my surprise, the black krim were setting some fruit.

The volunteer morning glories (from the neighbor) were starting to bloom.

I found two volunteer spiderwort (?).

In the front, I mulched and used some decorative river rock.

This passion vine came through the fence from the neighbor’s and bloomed for me a few times before it was eaten up by caterpillars.

Cardinals would come out to play, but the worst of the summer was near.

In the front, I saw my first rain lily.

I got an earthbox and planted eggplant and basil (also a roma tomato that bit the dust fairly quickly because it was getting way too hot).

The Black Krim kept frying, and the squireles ate all but one of the ripening tomatoes. At least I got to taste my first Black Krim.

The other eggplant in the ground only gave me one eggplant, while the one in the earthbox gave me 20+.

First eggplant.

I got a “Coral Nymph” salvia, and it had blooms on it daily even in the terrible heat of that summer.

Not a plant, but we got a new light to replace the one the hail demolished.

Earthbox basil looked happy.

A purple salvia greggi that needed some more water.

In between the roses in the front, I planted one Four O’Clock that had survived from seed, even after the hail storm. I knew some people didn’t like them because they reseed like crazy, but I wanted to give it a shot. It filled in the space nicely and produced lovely little blooms, until the winter killed it off.

roses and a floating snail

Tina Poe Illustration — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 14:45:05 +0000

It was raining a lot today, and when I got home the roses in the front were covered with blooms and rain droplets.

After the sun set, I looked out the french door at the garden and thought I saw a flying pixie. But it wasn’t a pixie. It was a snail, and it looked like it was being beamed up by an alien spaceship. But it wasn’t. It was crawling up the glass, making it’s way to the second story.

hands bees and cats

learning to garden part 2

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 22:06:06 +0000

I spent the winter reading, watching, and learning, and I started visiting local nurseries for the first time in 2009.

I made my first pesto using the Persian Basil planted the year before.

I tried to start about a million seeds. Moonflower, coral vine,
four o’clocks, basil, thyme, other herbs, other flowers, a ton of vegetable seeds. I even tried cuttings of Rosemary.

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We had the old wood siding taken off of the front of the house and hardi put in. After the construction was done, we turned our attention to the two small strips of dirt near the front door. I bought 30 or so tiny (very tiny) bulbs of “Prairie Sunset” rain lilies, Daylilies: Best of Friends (online dailiy vendor), Metaphor (online daylily vendor), Breathless Beauty (crappy bag of dead mystery roots from big box store), Moonlit Masquerade(crappy bag of dead mystery roots from big box store), and Rose Passion (crappy bag of dead mystery roots from big box store). Two “Grand Primo” narcissus. Two red double knockout roses, and one pink knockout.

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I didn’t have to wait long to be rewarded with blooms.

This daylily that bloomed from one of the big box store bag of crappy dead roots didn’t look anything like the labeled daylily it was supposed to be.

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Right after enjoying my first few blooms, our house was severely damaged in a terrible hail storm on March 25th, 2009.

Most of the million seedlings died that day, but I went on planning the ones that looked like they could make it.

We had to have many things ~~repaired~~ replaced at our house (windows, roof, skylight, doors, siding), and the damaged plants that I had taken care of were moved away or killed by the construction. The back yard went back to square one. Dirt and nothing more.

Surprisingly, the front yard plants weren’t too badly damaged, and the roses kept on going.

The “Metaphor” daylilies bloomed a few times. But besides the small mystery orange/yellow daylily, and the “Metaphor” no other daylily bloomed in 2009.

My very eventful, and sometimes stressful spring 2009 ended.

learning to garden part 1

Tina Poe Illustration — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 02:02:44 +0000

David and I bought our first house in the summer of 2007, and for the first time we had some very small pieces of land to call our own.

In the beginning, the house was such a big project that we neglected all of the green spaces, and soon all of that green died.

It took a year, but I finally started thinking about the outside spaces, and how I wanted them to look. At this point, I still didn’t know anything about plants.

My first plan consisted of grass and asian jasmine. I didn’t even think about changing the shapes that were already there in mulch and plastic edging. And so, David and I, uneducated about anything green and living, set out to ~~waste some money~~ buy some scraggly, mostly dead, looking St. Augustine sod because the season was ending, with about 8 starts of asian jasmine. We put down the sod, incorrectly, and I planted the asian jasmine in the mulched area to the right. Most of the grass died and none of the asian jasmine grew, at all. I read that they were drought tolerant, so I didn’t water them… much.

The first plan obviously didn’t work out and I found plants from the big box store that I thought would be fun to grow. I also spray painted the pots that had come with the house an aqua blue. I started reading about how to take care of the new plants I put into the pots.

My dad gave me some Persian basil seeds from my grandmother in Iran, I bought a grape tomato start, and a Jasminum Sambac, which I loved because the scent reminded me of Iran and the Mediterranean.

The grape tomato grew and produced about 80 tomatoes total, even though I didn’t know how to baby it very well.

And I learned that bonsai are way too much work.

I didn’t figure out until later why my basil weren’t getting bushy on their own, but I was able to make delicious pesto from my first basil plant.

I started a miniature compost been in a plastic tub.

My step-mom gave me a catnip plant for Mojito to enjoy.

I learned about fish emulsion and it made my plants very happy.

My step-mom also gave me an Encore azalea, but it didn’t make it very long after I planted it in the ground.

I bought a mint plant and also started collecting rocks from home construction sites because I started thinking about the layout again, not just plants I found at the store that I liked at that moment.

I started reading garden blogs from gardeners in Austin, and started learning more about native, naturalized and drought tolerant plants. I bought a few Oxblood Lily bulbs from a vendor online, after seeing how beautiful they were growing for the garden bloggers. My passion started to grow exponentially, and I was excited about gardening more in 2009.

I don’t know what to title this post with pictures of my cat’s haircut

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 14:40:56 +0000

Mojito loves laying on dirty clothes right before they get thrown into the washer. Look at his mass amounts of fuzz!

During the remodeling downstairs, dust and dirt got into Mojie’s mass amounts of fuzz and caused his fur to mat up, we couldn’t help him remove of all of them so off to the groomers he went, for the second time in his life. He didn’t like it at first.

Then he started to enjoy it.

David loves this photo because it shows that our house is “actually lived in”. I, on the other hand, wish that I had picked up a bit more before this photo was taken.

Here’s another, and now you know that I don’t always put my shoes away.

I really love this new rug we got for the newly renovated living room. Have you looked at the before pictures?

No related posts.

new year new art goals

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 06:54:13 +0000

2009 was a very slow year for this blog. There was so much change in my personal life (new job, tons of freelance work, marriage, house remodeling, husband’s job change to full time freelance) that I needed more time to myself until I got back into a normal rhythm before seriously blogging again. I’m sorry that I lost readers along the way last year, but I am looking forward to building everything back up in 2010.

As well as blogging more in general, I’m going to do more artwork this year (and try to eat out less, etc.)! I’m still working on writing S.M.A.R.T goals for myself, they won’t be easy, but I’m up for the challenge.

S = Specific
M = Measurable
A = Attainable
R = Realistic
T = Timely

David and I are starting to work on a comic together, not exactly sure yet where it will go, but I’m taking inspiration from the artwork in this page of the Dresden Codak. I also need to finish painting the Mirror Mirror illustration, it’s getting there and I get a lot done whenever I sit down and work on it, I just need to work on it more often.

gardening and new windows

Tina Poe Illustration — Mon, 18 May 2009 14:34:30 +0000

I’m so glad that all of the hail damage has finally been repaired on my house, we now have a new roof, new skylight, all new windows, new french door, and hardiplank siding, it looks great! I’m also finally making progress on cleaning up my garden after the construction workers made a big mess.

See more photos here.

carnage

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 13:44:24 +0000

March 25, 2009 we were hit by a terrible hail storm in North West Austin. It seems like my neighborhood was the hardest hit, the storm didn’t last very long at all but left behind a giant mess of damaged cars and houses. I took tons of photos during and after, for insurance purposes, and for my own (future) amusement. Thankfully David, Mojito, and I were safe and no one was hurt.

You can view a lot more of my photos of the hail storm on my facebook profile.

gardening and new windows

fireplace shelf

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 18:49:27 +0000

I have been thinking about an inexpensive way to spruce up my fireplace, since it was pretty plain and boring. I always liked the recessed boxes above the fireplace especially after I painted them white with light gray sides, but the fireplace itself has always been lacking something. Instead of a mantle, since our fireplace is off the ground, we got a chunky floating shelf that I wanted to put above the fireplace to see if it would bring extra interest to the area. We like it! Here are a few “before” photos of the fireplace too, enjoy!

In the listing photo, the previous owner had hidden the fireplace completely behind a large TV, not sure why you would want to do that.

Uncovered.

While we were painting.

While we were decorating and finishing up.

No related posts.

Aqua mailbox and other home improvements

Tina Poe Illustration — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:30:15 +0000

Last weekend, David and I worked a little bit more on the house. It was really nice, and I wanted to post some photos, but David beat me to it and posted them on his blog. I’ll Show you guys too, with some before and afters.

Cuttings of rosemary and salvia greggii I’m trying to root. And, I didn’t really “steal” them, pfft, don’t listen to David.

Cutie pie, Mojito.

I spray painted our mailbox and outdoor lights the same aqua that I used on my vases indoors. Soon, we’re getting hardiplank installed and that ugly wood ripped out too, I can’t wait. Oh, in this shot you can also see the solar walkway lights I installed and my new red car. I also have several plants planted in the walkway to the front door, but I’ll take photos of that maybe in the spring when they get bigger and bloom.

Another shot of the mailbox. In spring, I will be planting Four O’clocks and other lovely plants around the mailbox and front yard too. Exciting!

Here was the mailbox and lights before we purchased the house.

That same weekend, we also got a lot of painting done in the guest room, and some more work in the master bedroom too, I’ll post photos when that is finished.

finished hugging

Tina Poe Illustration — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:00:31 +0000

Phew, this weekend I put in more hours on this painting then I had since I started too many months ago, and it’s done. Weee!

monsters finished

painting vases

Tina Poe Illustration — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 12:00:57 +0000

I took the aqua spray paint that I used on the planters in the back yard and painted the vases on one of my bookshelves to brighten them up. I was tired of all the brown on brown.

Before

After, including the large post modern floor lamp that I purchased, and my Audrey Kawasaki “Claudia & the Coelacanth”.

Ah, and we have a new bonsai on the dining room buffet. He looks a lot better than our older bonsai… who might be dying. Damn these little trees, they are not easy to take care of.

mortal kombat

Tina Poe Illustration — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 22:44:49 +0000

We’ve been working on our house a lot more recently, as well as outside in the front and back yard. More painting, fixing faucets, placing vent covers, installing solar walkway lights, buying a very large new post modern floor lamp, etc. I’ll get some new photos up sometime! Related posts:Aqua mailbox and other home improvements [...]
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home alone

Tina Poe Illustration — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 18:14:45 +0000

I’ve been home all week, save Christmas where David and I went to spend the day with family. David has been working a little bit so part of the week was spent alone, just me and Mojie. Did you know there’s not a lot of good on TV ALL the time? The internet has been boring me a lot too, but I’m sure I’ll be more interested once I get back to work. Being home so much has allowed us to finish a lot more painting work, put up a new kitchen light, new door handles, and hang about 57 frames with photos and artwork.

My least favorite, and most time consuming task right now is painting all of the wood trim and wood doors a high gloss white. It takes for-freakin’-ever! Drives me nuts. Regular wall painting=easy as pie. Stupid wood=work of the devil. I don’t know if painting them white was the smartest thing to do, but I bet stripping and restaining them a darker wood color would not have been any easier. At least it was less expensive than replacing everything with new trim, doors, and everything.

David and I have decided to try for stained concrete flooring, I think it will look so nice. My old home renovation list has been updated slightly, and grown with a lot more details. Mostly with the kitchen revamping. The wall between the kitchen and living room is coming down to become a bar, and I need a new counter top but I still haven’t decided what I want, I’m thinking of concrete counters, but I’ll have to see if that will work well. The cabinets need to go, and new sleek modern ones need to come in their place. We like these white ones with some glass thrown in.

The plain rectangular bathroom mirrors with no frames I want replaced with contemporary oval mirrors like these from Ikea, with a stainless steel frame. I’ll need new sinks and vanities as well.

So, lots more work to do, but at least the bigger things will be done by someone other than me, hello contractors! I should get back to work painting some more trim, yay. I hope you guys had a great week and holidays!

productivity to the max

Tina Poe Illustration — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:25:43 +0000

After spending all day with our three families and eating two thanksgiving meals, David and I headed back home for a long weekend of home renovation. The living room and dining room are getting so close to being done that they make me pee my pants a little each time I walk downstairs.

The ceilings are a little streaky but they won’t be after a little touch up work. Can you spot the little Mojie? He is hiding.

Commence jealously, now.

never again

Tina Poe Illustration — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 19:47:58 +0000

For my next house, if I ever say anything about wanting to renovate or remodel or paint ANYTHING myself, you may take a dull knife, stick it into my gut and wiggle it around nice and good.

I hate you HGTV, HomeDepot, and all you others who try to make it look so easy. I never want to hear the words DIY, sweat equity, or weekend project ever again. I’m never going to be able to finish this in a reasonable amount of time. So far, I have only been able to finish painting the baseboards in the living room and dining room white, from their ugly wood origins.

Original ugly colored wood that I have to paint over

Before and after dining room

I have been painting all weekend, trying to finish the edges where two different colors meet, trying to make very straight and perfect edges. Maybe I will win the lotto in 2008 and then pay someone to finish all this work.

what does your front door say

Tina Poe Illustration — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 18:03:30 +0000

David and I haven’t done any work on the exterior of our house yet. Our plan is to get a bluish gray hardie plank on the front exterior, the back already has a white hardie plank. Then the stucco will be painted white. The bluish gray and white combination is one that I really like, and which is very similar to what we have in the interior.

We have been trying to decide what color to paint the front door. I was leaning towards red at first, but since our neighbors have painted their house GREEN! it would look like perpetual Christmas. So red was thrown out. We could go with white, a beautiful and safe choice, but I want something that stands out. So now I want a very high gloss black door. It’s more traditional European but I want a really cool door knocker to go with it, one like this:

Wouldn’t that be sweet?

UPDATE: Oh hai, Justin, you are the best! Thank you, for buying me this door knocker as soon as you saw how much I liked it today.

And also: I was showing my dad the door knocker and saying how cool it was, and he told me that when he was a little boy they used to have this same type of knocker on their front door in Iran. Holy coincidence Batman!

painting as exercise

Tina Poe Illustration — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:20:54 +0000

What a productive weekend! I painted all of the wood baseboards, trim, and the banister a high gloss white, in the living and dining room. My body also feels like I did squats for eight hours, which is pretty accurate. David was in charge of organizing books, movies, and the second bedroom. That second bedroom/office is now put together and usable! I no longer have anxiety attacks as I walk by it, no more giant indistinguishable pile o’ crap! So, good news all around.