Do we need to start building an Ark?

Sunday started off like a lot of days lately, with rainy skies. It is as if the good Lord has decided to give us the rain that we had been missing over the past several years.

As I said earlier, our good friends Ronnie and Lee from south Alabama came up for the weekend. They had ordered several statues from the concrete man Randy and Jamie introduced us to in Clanton, Alabama. He really has great prices on everything he has. In the pictures in today's blog you will see the lady in the first photo and the large fountain in the second we purchased from him dirt cheap. His motto is "its only concrete."

This is one of the new additions to the garden at the back of the yard. She is a welcome addition to the garden family. Not sure if she will stay here or move more to the center of the bed to be surrounded by the beautiful blooming lilies and glads. Any suggestions?

Here is the most exciting addition to the garden since we finished the second retaining wall. In this photo you see the bowl and top of the fountain. Notice that the pump housing has not been finished yet. He didn't have one to match the finish on this fountain so he gave us the pump housing at not cost.

Here I tried to get the whole fountain up close. Not too pleased with this picture. You can see the water cascading from the lady at the well to the bottom bowl. (Can't tell we love this fountain can you) We didn't even wait until we got the pump housing stained.

Here you can see the fountain in its current position. We did have a reason for setting it up, we wanted to see where we wanted it. It has replaced a seldom used bird bath.

"Jimmy's Plant Hospital and Adoption Center."
Most of these plants were rescued from others cleaning out their beds, found while trekking through the woods on his work sites, and even friends giving them to him after they had almost let them die. The fern that that you see in the upper left was pronounced DOA by Dr. Wade when it arrived. With Dr. Jimmy's patients and persistence it is beginning to come back to life. Randy and Jamie of http://jandrgardenblog.blogspot.com/ gave him the cork screw willows that you see planted, and growing i might add, in the red solo cups in the back.

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Included this picture, not because it was that impressive of a picture, but because of the way it turned out. We noticed how it looked as if we had photo shopped the rose into to picture. Just thought it was neat.

I think this one is called the "Blue Eyes"

Love this one: "Wild Horses"

Well in closing let me say thanks again for all of the comments and the visits. We are still trying to figure this whole blog thing out, so please be patient.

Also, I almost forgot, if you want an agave, please let us know. We have 12 babies now and need to get rid of them. If you want one let us know and we will send one to you absolutely free (is this the part where I say, "call now, in the next ten minutes, cause we can't do this all day"?). Just don't want to have to throw them away.

Happy gardening until next time, Wade and Jimmy

Yet another rainy day weekend

We are here at home this weekend with the rain pouring down outside. We are blessed to have our friends Ronnie and Lee here to spend the weekend with us. During a break in the showers this morning we walked through the garden and were able to take a few pictures to share with you. Hope you enjoy and have a wonderful Saturday.

Even the squirrels were looking for cover from the rain. This little fellow was resting in one of the trees in the backyard.

This is my, Wade, curly airplane plant. It has really come on from the little baby it was at the beginning of the spring

Here is one of the baby agave we have. We have twelve of these babies in various sizes. If you need/want one let us know. We will be glad to send you one as long as we have them to send.

Don't know the name of this little beauty, but, here it is in all its glory.

Here is a picture of one of the asiatic lily's. They are blooming throughout the yard.

We finally are seeing the canas begin to bloom. Love the large blooms they produce

In looking back over the previous posts I realized that we had not shown a close up of the stairs Jimmy built on the north side of the yard from the recycled concrete.

Here is another on Jimmy's recycle projects. A neighbor was throwing this strawberry pot away because if the break and it also has a crack. He asked if he could have it, pieced it together and glued it. You see the result, we use it as a succulent dish.

Lightning Bugs Galore

We haven't had much time this week to spend in the yard working or to just sit down and enjoy it for that matter. So for your entertainment, LOL, we are posting some of the pictures we took on Sunday after the rain had left the area. Their are a few I have included that Jimmy took today.

This is a photo of the chipmunks home. Before we bought the house this tree had apparently fallen and they did not remove the stump and left it laying on its side. We though it had a certain natural appeal to it and left it in place. We have English Ivy growing on it now and covering most it for the most part.

This is our Princess, Baby, she has decided that her place in the yard is atop the stump. I noticed Sunday that she was missing from the patio area. I looked down the hill and there she was, perched atop the stump.



Here is a picture from the lower garden looking back toward the house. You can see that the lilies are blooming and there are more coming. The Glads are starting to bloom as well.


The matins did not come to the garden this year. It is the first year we have had a place for them so we are hopeful that next year they will choose us. For the time being we do have a full house.

The Lantana is beginning to bloom and show its beautiful blooms.

These two pictures are of the hydrangea we have in the garden that are beginning to show their true colors.

In closing tonight I wanted to tell you about the Lighting Bugs we had tonight.

There were hundreds of lightning bugs. If they had all decided to light up at once it would have probably made the street lights go out. LOL. It was neat to see.

well bye for now and happy gardening.

Wade and Jimmy

New Camera

(Front entrance to our home)

Jimmy and I woke up this dreary Sunday morning hoping to be able to get some things accomplished in the yard. Guess what. What you asked, we didn't. It rained most of the day so we went to breakfast, only it was lunch by the time we got out of the house. I had told Jimmy that we needed a new camera, so off camera shopping we went. We settled on the Fuji FinePix S1500. Like Randy http://jandrgardenblog.blogspot.com/ we got tired of being beaten out by the camera dealers that buy their stock off Ebay. At any rate take a look at the pictures we took after the rain today and let us know what you think.

This is one of the favorites of Jimmy and I both. I think it is because you can see the droplet of water about to drip from the petal of this "glad". Did not even see this until we downloaded the photo.

Just to show you more of Jimmy's creative mind, he used this old seed spreader that the previous owners had left here when they sold us the house. We had tried to use it when we moved in to broadcast the grass seeds and found that it was just easier to do it by hand. The fern planted in this planter is a "tiger fern". We bought this from Southern Homes and Gardens in Wetumpka, Alabama.

I think we had posted a photo of our praying angel in a previous post, but I wanted to show you all how she looks to be crying. I noticed this a couple of months ago one afternoon when I arrived home after a long day. I just think this is cool.

The picture above is a bloom from the "walking iris" given to us by our friends Ronnie and Lee. It was a house/garden warming gift.

Jimmy took this picture this afternoon with the new camera as well. It is of an "Asiatic lily"

He told me that is what this was, I had not a clue what it was called.

Here is another of Jimmy's ingenious ideas. It seems that one of the going things now in gardening are the concrete or gazing balls. He frequents the thrift stores looking for ideas. He came home one day with two bowling balls that he had bought for $1.00 each. I thought he had lost his mind. Turns out I shouldn't have questioned him. I love how the bowling ball and the "purple heart" seem to have been made for each other.

We added two new additions to our front entrance last night. The "fox glove" was irresistible. Jimmy says that it is the color. He says that if I had my way I would probably paint the house Purple. I don't think so though.





This is Sidney, our Cocker Spaniel. She is standing in her favorite spot. She likes to stand on top of the wall watch for squirrel's. It is funny to watch her when she sees one. She goes flying off the wall and chases them around the yard.


And not to be forgotten is our little princess, Baby. She really doesn't have a favorite spot, just wherever she can be under foot.



I have most likely kept you far too long today, so I will sign off by saying that I hope you have a wonderful week and happy gardening.

Wade & Jimmy

Happy Saturday Everybody, another day to work in the yard for Wade and I. As you can see in this picture Wade was walking around shooting pictures while I was trying to contend with the chipmunk! problem we have. I really don't mind them living under the fallen tree in my bed but they are tunneling under my flowers and causing our girls, Baby and Sydney, to go crazy trying to catch them as they pop their head up. As a result of the chipmunks tunnels our girls trashed one of my day lillies today which threw my blood pressure into high gear.




Wade and I were talking this morning about how funny it was to have a Saint Francis statue in the yard, The patron Saint of animals, and having to contend with the squirrels and chipmunks. I guess they feel at home in our backyard because we love animals as long as they don't destroy what we are trying to build here, Oh and definitely the ones who slither on their bellies. That thought just sends shivers up my spine, because we have a tract of woods behind our property that seems to be home to all sorts of creatures, including yes you guessed it snakes .Since we first moved here in August of 2008 I have dealt with 7 so far, none all to big but a snake is a snake to me. Some people say leave them alone but my ability to imagine them slithering through my yard is something I cannot bring myself to contend with ....

In this photo is an ongoing progress of me (Jimmy) trying to improve the front of our house .The three pots of plants you see on the sidewalk are a few of my Clearance finds as I strolled through Lowe's this morning. I am all about finding deals on plants so that we will be able to have more for less these days, as I know many people out their realize everything is rising except the money we receive for the work we do. I am all about reusing things also recycling instead of having to buy new everytime and filling the landfills with more debris, my way of doing my part to save the planet I guess.

Milk and Wine Crinums Oh how I just love to see those bell shaped blooms open up and reach for the sky. We have about 12 of these in our yard that I (jimmy) dug from our neighbor from the past yard, they were going to mow them over with the grass and told me to dig them or they will be gone. As you may have guessed I took my trusty shovel and the rest was history so to speak .

This picture is of the bench garden made from recycled concrete, the cracks in between the larger sections of concrete pieces were excellent for planting succulents, the plants in the foreground are Agave and will get too large for the bed but for the time being they look good to me if for nothing but filler, as some have told me I change my mind like the wind.

This is another section of the same bench. I know it may look a bit thrown together from the top, but the overall look of this bed is good I think .

These ( I was told to be Hen and Chicks ) beauties are delicate looking and if a dog tramples them they will lose leaves although they will throw new plants from the fallen petals which in my book is a very good thing indeed.Sun loving as these plants may be I think they enjoy the bit of shade that hits them in the hottest part of the day here. I have to admit something to everyone who reads this blog, I have a problem not watering something when it looks too dry, yes it is a funny thing. Reason enough for me to have to put all the plants that don't like much water as far away from the hose as possible, although I have gotten better at dealing with that thankfully and Wade has laughed at me so many times saying just wait and see how they fare after you drown them. Well it is time to go mow the grass and plant a few things, there will be more to come as we progress. Enjoy the weather and we will be writing new entries and reading all your blogs, because all you have had some very good ideas and very beautiful pictures to share .

Well since starting this blog we have already been encouraged and motivated by many of you. We have no new photos as I write this, however, I feel this will soon change. The Lillies are blooming and even some of glads are beginning to bloom. (I don't know why but glads are one of my favorites. Wish the blooms would last year round) We missed getting a photo of the Dragon Lilly last week. It was awesome. (use your imagination) It was a deep, deep burgundy with an almost black spire coming from the middle. We had purchased it from Petals from the Past on an excursion with Randy and Jamie. I am personally excited that my Donkey Ear is having babies. We love the succulents as well. Our Mother of Thousands didn't fair to well over the winter. She was apparently very temperamental when we brought her in. I did manage to save a few of the babies and they are beginning to get a little growth to them now.

If the rain holds off this weekend we are going to be taking some pictures and posting those for all to see.

By the way, if you have a suggestion on how to keep the squirrels and chipmunks from terrorizing the beds and devouring the bulbs of a plant, PLEASE, PLEASE give us some advice.

Until later,
Wade and Jimmy

Well I actually was able to get the other computer to allow me to download these pictures from onto a zip drive. I am still learning how to download so these are actually not in order.

This is one of the beginning photos of the pond you saw in the previous post.

Notice the waterfall Jimmy built. The rocks you see around the base of the pond are the concrete sacks that had gotten wet at a contractors place.

Another of the pond and waterfall

Jimmy went scavaging through the woods behind our home to find some of the rocks you see in the bottom of the pond. Most of them came from the yard though in our clean up efforts.

The pond was originally going to be placed in the Northeast corner of the yard. Jimmy decicded that it would look better in the Southeast corner. Turns out this was a better choice because there is less sunlight in the area he moved it to.

The picture above was taken shortly after the first terrace was completed. You should notice the drop off from where the top of the wall to where he was standing when he took the picture.

Picture of the lower portion of the yard before any work had been done. You do see one small section of a bed that Jimmy put in shortly after we moved in. He did this because we had so many plants that we were moving from the other place. Only took one moving van to move everything in the house, but it took two trips in the moving van and one with Randy's pickup to get most of the plants and flowers.

I don't want to bore anyone with redundant descriptions, but I am so proud of what Jimmy accomplished.

The area above is now where the pond is located. He had marked out where he wanted the base of the second retaining wall to be placed.

Sidney is our Cocker and she was a constant overseer of the project.

Now we get to the first photos taken when we moved into the house. Looking back up the hill you see the slope we were dealing with. Looks so different now and are we both glad.

Another angle in the backyard prior to any work being completed.

Another picture of the lower section of the yard prior to any work.

And another....

This one was taken a few days after we moved in. Jimmy had cleared the fence line along the back of the property and placed an old bench we had brought with us from the other place.

This section of the yard gave us fits with runoff. If you look closely in the bottom left corner of the picture you will see our little pricess, "Baby". She is our Shitzu who belonged to Jimmy's mother before she died.

This final picture gives a kind of overall view of the yard prior to our beginning any real work. In fact if I am not mistaken this one may have been before we actually moved in. Well. I hope I have not bored you all too much with these pictures and again I apologize for the order... Just look from the bottom up and read it again. LOL

Have a great day and wonderful evening...