Case in point, check out this newly huge and purple flowered meadow sage! It’s pretty much swallowing all the other plants around it.

And, not only has the mystery perennial bloomed fully, but it is no longer a mystery—ladies and gentleman I give you the Penstemon “Husker’s Red”

It’s hard to see in that photo but even the Coral Bell in front of it with the greenish/purple leaves is starting to bud something. It’s super flowery out back!

So what’s the bad news you might ask? Well, we found yet another massive fuck-up performed by our original contractor–Good times! I can’t tell you how much I would love to just move on and forget about him and his crew completely and let bygones be, but when all these huge cut corner keep affecting my life negatively on a daily basis it’s hard to be so yogic. So what was it this time? Well, we knew the ceiling under the stoop needed some work a few months ago but we were waiting for the right time to tackle such a messy job. But Eric was having issues breathing in the house for a couple of weeks on end and was miserable from lack of sleep and did some investigation and found some mold growing in the crevices up there. So on the next nice weekend day he made a hole in the ceiling to check it out and immediately the whole thing came crumbling down on his head. The underside of the stoop was COVERED in mold which we scrapped off so we could survey the damage. There were some huge areas where water had been coming in from the steps above and an old steel bar that was completely rusted out from repeated soakings. Then we realized that the contractor has just covered over all the rust and water damage with the new pieces of sheetrock that was hanging about two inches below the real ceiling. So for almost 2 years water has been collecting and mold has been forming in that 2 inch space. It’s a wonder the ceiling didn’t collapse sooner. After cleaning the whole thing up we left it bare until the next big rain storm so we could see exactly where the water was coming in.

With our good fortunes the next driving rain storm came a couple of days later at 3 am and the sound of water rushing in woke us both up. Huge puddles of water were coming in from all along the metal bar and from two other large cracks near the corner—well at least now we know where the patching needs to happen. First we need to button everything up from on top where the steps to the tenant apartment are, and once we are sure there is no more water coming in we can use come hydraulic cement to plug up these holes from the inside and then re-sheetrock and re-paint. I’m sure you can imagine how angry we are to fine yet another example of our contractor’s lack of work ethic and shoddy management. I would love to let this go, really, but his mistakes just keep on staring me in the face. Sigh.

So, positive note for the end? Well we finally ordered our new HDMI equipped, ultra-powerful receiver which is the last piece for our kick-ass surround side entertainment setup! And we also got two new red leather storage ottomans to increase the comfort level and functionality of the living room. At least something is almost finished…

Inspiration:

But seriously, check out the tops of those tall red plants…

Those are the Celosia and they will soon have big tall spikey red flowers…in fact I may need to move some stuff out of those planters as it might get way too crowded in the near future in there.

Behold our mystery perennial above, that tall spikey ones that will soon have big white flowers. Gino couldn’t remember what type of plants these were and they are pretty non-descript right now. I am hoping once the flowers come in full I will be able to identify it. Bud close up:

We have five of these things and they are all super tall now and covered in these little white buds so chances are there is going to be some major flower action out back in the very near future—sweet!

What else? Well my favorite plant in the garden changes on a weekly basis. My current obsession is our Globe Blue Spruce. Man, it’s the best color and it’s looking so fat and bushy! I wish we could get more blue plants, especially for the front of the house, but they need TONS of direct sunlight to get that color. What a shame. But just for contrast here is a before/after shot of the blue spruce in the foreground with the rest of that side of the garden, top photo taken 3 weeks ago and the bottom one a couple of days ago.

Wow, what a change! Our birch is now weeping below our mystery perennials with the white flowers. Me thinks there is some pruning in our very near future.

Talking about bushy, the meadow sages and looking huge and green and just in the past few days we’ve seen the beginnings on their soon-to-be tall spikey purple flowers

Close-up

But it’s not all fun and games out back—in the last few weeks the fence along the right side right next to the sunroom has bowed AGAIN! We had it replaced last October and it was fine all winter and most of the spring. We had originally thought that the warm air from the vent was what was warping the fence but when it was fine for 7 months or so we figured maybe it was just installed wrong. But now it’s happening again. The strange thing is that this vent has connections for 4 things: the downstairs bathroom fan, the dryer in the basement, the stove itself and the vent hood above the stove. Only the stove related vents and the dryer would create heat so we tested this by turning up the oven to 500 degrees and turning the dryer on high at the same time. Then we felt the air coming out of it and it really wasn’t all that hot. The only thing we can think is that the warm air from the vents combined with the warm air outside is the deadly combination for this fence. Sigh. Well, here is the only vent with the fence bowed the first time:

See how the top has the air blowing down pretty much near where the fence is bowing. So we talked to Alex (our ever-trusty metal worker extraordinaire) about putting together a solution that would vent up and over the fence and to the side so as not to really hit the fence at all. Also, when he took it down he saw that these vents were completely clogged up with debris and there was no convenience way to access it for cleaning so he opted to build us a nicer solution with an access panel for cleaning. Here’s what we got:

It’s hard to see in this pic, but the top left of the new vent cover goes up slightly and there is a small opening to let the air out a couple of inches above that top fence cap. This not only prevents water or snow from collecting on top but it forced the air up and out and hopefully away from the fence. The other hope is since those side and top pieces are thicker that they can take a little heat. You can also sort of see the access panel, but here’s a close up:

Right now it’s just primed and painted with a high heat paint on the inside, but we will spray it cooper to match the other vents in the coming weeks. We will also get the fence company back out to replace this section again. Yay lifetime warranty and free repair!

Which is all well and good until your eye finds its way to the back left corner and sees the lonely little barren fountain with no plants around it. Here’s a close up:

So sad! We did some research and figured out that perhaps the grasses that were planted there were not happy about the lack of sunlight in the back corner. Also, we should have trimmed back all the dead pieces much sooner. The combination of those two factors led to this sporadic regrowth and this general sad look. So we got some more grasses, ones that will hopefully tolerate the shade better and also regrow more predictably.

The tall grasses are Karl Foerster Feather Read grasses which will eventually grow 5-6 feet hight and have purplish-bronze feathery flowers on top. The three smaller grasses in front of the fountain are Silvery Sunproof Lilyturf which are a striped light green and dark green that will also get a spikey lilac flower at some point.

We also had one dead maiden grass on the other side of the back of the garden which also looked quite sad.

Again the lack of a huge amount of direct sunlight in the other back corner limited our plant choices. We finally settled on a Camellia Japonica or “Kramer’s Supreme” which will bloom with HUGE (and I mean really, really big) dark red flowers in the early spring. Too bad we need to wait almost a year to see them, but this plant will do well with the light we have to give it in this corner.

I also found a nice potted flowering plant to put on the table near the bench to help further hide the AC hookup lines that go into the sunroom

So after another round of de-weeding and re-mulching I’m proud to say that the backyard is pretty much done! However there is still more planting in our future, as we have almost finished grouting the front yard and after the grout and the tile and sealed we will be looking to fill 4 huge planters we bought at Costco last week. Since that area also does not get much light I see some big Hollies and perhaps some Azaleas and/or rhododendrons in our near future.

Shea quickly laid claim to the scratch lounge and spent the majority of his visiting chilling in it, much to Monkey’s annoyance. But what was he going to do? Shea is like 4 times his size…

Shea also laid claim to the basket on the same window sill—but fortunately for my cats he couldn’t be in both places at once

Jules is a cat without a basket or a lounge

I mistakenly thought Shea might like to sleep on the guest bed but only my cats seem interested.

Shea loved the scratch lounge so much we sent it home with him. Monkey is still upset about this turn of event as the store near us that carries it has yet to get one back in stock for us to replace it!

Monkey was absolutely fascinated by Shea and loved to follow him around and stalk him. With Shea gone he clings to his black sheep for comfort!

Jules was not a big fan of Shea. He kept eating all her food and she needs as much as she can get. When he was here she dropped down to around 8 pounds but we recently beefed her back up to almost 10 pounds so she is back to fighting weight!

And without their scratch lounge the cats are forced to fight over the basket. Here they are in a rare moment of calm sharing it. But Monkey can never leave well enough alone so shortly thereafter the biting started, followed by hissing and swatting. Sigh, why can’t they just can’t along?

The third one there wasn’t even looking so hot, just like its two brothers across the way

But the most unhappy plant of them all was the Golden Hinoki Cypress all the way in the back center of the yard. Here is was during happier times on the right.

But most of that green had turned to an orangish-brown and was just looking pretty sad. I looked up the light requirements for that shrub and it appears to need more sun than it is getting back there, so I hatched a plan to replace some plants and move some others. This is a far cry from my only experience with gardening, which was planting a couple of tulip bulbs in the house I grew up in as a kid. Let’s hope it works!

So, early Saturday morning I set out in a rented pickup truck with our friend Colin to drive out to Long Island and hit a couple of the nurseries for plant options and pricing. First we hit Hicks Nursery in Westbury which we found to be sorta like the shopping mall of nurseries. It took us a while to find the outside plants which were poorly labeled and highly priced. When we asked for help with recommendations on what plants worked well in shade we got some vague responses but not a whole lot of help. While we saw some stuff we liked we decided to try another one to see if we would have better luck. That is what brought us to Cipriano in East Meadow, which was more of a family run joint, with all the outdoor plants up front and well organized and priced. We got a lot more help there and tons of assistance planning and selecting our plants. And the prices were much more reasonable.

So plants and a couple of bags of mulch in hand, we came back and Eric and I set to moving and planting for the rest of the weekend. We got it all done except we ran out of mulch, but here are the fruits of our labor.

The half dead looking cypress moved to an area with partial sunlight to see how it does

Two new junipers on the left—Blue Chip Junipers actually cause they didn’t have Bar Harbors, but they look so similar

A couple of new container plants—two Japanese maples in the small round planters for now that will eventually move to the front of the house once that area is grouted and sealed and we get some planters in there.

Trimmed plants, super happy perennials and new mulch—check out all the new growth on that globe blue Spruce in the foreground and the weeping Norway spruce in the back left! Plus we are still waiting on those perennials to flower.

And a brand spanking new Japanese maple in the back where the Cypress was. They evidently don’t like direct sun and grow very slowly. I’ve been in love with this plant for a while and kept walking past it at both nurseries wondering how to make one work. The small ones were pretty reasonably prices so I went for it! I’m thinking I might stack some rocks around the base to get it more of a focal point feel back there.

And in the new planter boxes, to compliment the red tones in some of the perennials and the new maple:

In the back we have Celosia, which will grow some intense tall red flowers, some silver dust for a white look, some wizard coral sunrise which I refer to as “the watermelon plant” and in the front some red splash hypoestes. So this is our first attempt at planting some stuff on our own—let’s see if it works!

Last Sunday we couldn’t do anything without a trip to Home Depot to pick up new filters for the central air units. It reached 93 degrees in Brooklyn last weekend and no one was happy about that stifling heat, especially Monk. Here he is pre-air conditioning fire-up:

Here’s the close up on hot, low hanging upset kitty-face—poor little guy!

So it was off to Home Depot to try to figure out the difference between the filters in Ultra Allergen, Micro Allergen and Ultimate Allergen (hint, probably nothing except the price) and then by the time the AC filters were replaced in the most ghetto-like fashion ever we had already lost most of the day. We did some more tiling but quickly lost the light and our steam. Everything left to do required elaborate cuts which is a time consuming process. So we closed out Sunday with mostly finished tile and Eric did the rest of the cuts after work on Monday and Tuesday and got all the tile mortared down on Wednesday evening. Then we hunkered down for a solid couple of days of rain, assumed based on all the meteorological predictions that we would lose this entire weekend to rain as well. However, today it’s Saturday and so far no rain despite what they have said so we lost a day we could have been grouting and we most likely will actually lose tomorrow to rain. Oh well, the good news is that the rain is no longer powdering the concrete in the front patio and clogging up the drains. Plus, even without the grout and covered in pollen, the tiled area looks 500% better than it did before. Check it:

The area around the drain had such a deep slope that this is the closest we could get with the tile, but we have a nice 9.5 inch stainless drain cover that we’ll be installing there to cover that area up. Then we just need to paint the window ledges and the vent, touch up the paint on the walls and the railings, finish grouting, seal the slate and get some planters in that area. And THEN we’ll be done.

Also speaking of done, here is the new blue door after its new coat of slightly lighter, slightly brighter paint:

And here’s Monk basking in the chilly awesomeness of central AC

Also Friday night we had our inaugural grilling session, completely with filet mignon au poivre, grilled potatoes with homemade herb/parmesan butter and string beans baked with garlic, olive oil, lemon zest and roasted hazelnuts…it was delicious! I would say the steak was 97% perfect. It was a tad on the medium rare side but still tasty. We just need to let the internal temperature on the thermometers go a couple of degrees higher next time and it will be perfect.

Today, Saturday, it’s 85 degrees here in New York. Pretty much the first day of summer and everyone is acting accordingly. We spent the whole day working outside and taking advantage of a few nice days in a row. It’s actually supposed to be 88 tomorrow! Maybe it’s time to take the covers off the AC units…hmmm. So we inspected our concrete and all looked good. We used my handy mosaic guide to map out the mosaic first so we could get a feel for doing it with actual tiles. The job would have been much easier with the same sized tiles, but I think this will look much nicer in the long run. When all the prep was done we snapped out our first chalk like to start off of.

Here’s the slate tile close up next to the side walls we painted last weekend:

Then it was time to mix mortar and start tiling. The space was too tight for both of us to work in right now so Eric got to tiling and I got to fixing up our blue front door.

The blue front door is powder coated steel which means the paint is baked into the steel which is supposed to make it last longer and keep it more impervious to scratches and the like. However the door has taken quite a beating over the last few months with two tenants moving out and another two moving it. Also, Eric accidently wiped off the door with a rag that has some Goof-Off on it and it took off some of the paint finish. So we needed to repaint the whole thing just to get a baseline back. I worked with Alex to get the best match on the paint as possible, and got some recommendations from the paint store around the corner on how to repaint powder coated steel. It’s not as straight-forward as you might think. First I had to sand scuff the surface down a bit to prep it for receiving paint. Then I had to prime it with a primer designed for metal. I used our existing Rustoleum Rusty Metal primer since we still have a few quarts of this from painting all the radiators. This is the front of the door taped up and primed.

As people were walking by and seeing me paint the door I could tell they weren’t happy. Not everyone likes the design of our house but the blue door is pretty much universally loved. They got their wish a few hours later when I sanded the door again and then applied the first coat of the blue paint. And then it got interesting. The paint is not really paint at all; it’s a Polyurethane enamel which means it has the consistency of part oatmeal, part glue. It was a pain to work with. And every little imperfection shows in it. It was so sticky it was pulling all the fibers out of my paint brush and bits of cotton off my roller. I kept picking these pieces out with my nails which was a big mistake. Once the first coat was done I needed to give it 4-6 hours to be dry to the touch but I couldn’t apply the second coat for 12 hours. And I have to apply a second coat within 24 hours for it to bond properly so that is on the agenda for tomorrow. However it took me longer to get the paint off my hands and nails then it did to actually paint the door. This stuff is lethal! Tomorrow I am wearing gloves and using pliers to get any stray brush or roller pieces. Pics of the new blue door to come tomorrow.

While I was working on the door and taking the top few layers off my skin to get the paint off, this is what Eric was doing:

This is what Monk was doing

Eric got about 90% of the floor tiled today so he is confident he can do the rest plus the ledges and stairs tomorrow. So no grouting this weekend but we can do that together and get it knocked out in a couple of hours, maybe even one night after work this week. We’ll see. Now we are grilling again. Yum!

Look closely and you can see Maui a couple of times (in the shot from our kitchen looking at our stairs they kept using to show the inside) and Monk (on the balcony in the sunroom in the shot they kept using to show the before status of our yard)

TIP – Make sure to click on the HD button in the bottom right corner of the YouTube player to view in HD

King of Dirt – Oasis in a Tiny Backyard Part 1

King of Dirt – Oasis in a Tiny Backyard Part 2