Magic Mailbox

BY SKEETER

What does one do with an old mailbox? In my Georgia Gardens, we work our magic! I found this mailbox for free through Craigslist. A nice guy named Terry handed it over to me, rather then have it taking space in the landfill.

I gave it a fresh coat of green spray paint which I had on hand.

Out with the Patio Paints (Thanks for the outside paint tip Tina) and I started to play a bit.

I painted all but the front flap.

Yellow and Purple were my colors of choice along with a white picket fence.

A salvaged piece of wood from a front porch renovation and just like Magic, we have a new mailbox for the garden! To the left is a Crepe Myrtle that had to be cut to the ground last year after a storm destroyed it. Looking good now. Volunteer Black-eyed Susans and Cleome are popping up in this picture as well.

I had planned to keep the front flap completely open thus, no painting of flowers on the flap. The plan is to attract Wrens in this new birdhouse. We opt out on cutting a hole. The Saint thinks our chances of gaining interest from a bird are better if we do not open the flap all the way. Hum, should I go back and paint the front now? This project has led to extending the Semi-Formal Garden. We shall talk about that brick pathway another time.

The Saint put a fresh coat of paint on the recycled post and I have planted some pretties below. Russian Sage, African Violet, Clematis, Verbena and Penstemon. And of course, Miss Myrtle is to the left.

This is a long shot of my MAGIC MAILBOX, In the Garden...
Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

Faux Fence

By SKEETER
It did not take me long to decided what to do with the empty uneven stump in the middle of my planter. After reading the suggestions from you wonderful commenter's, I rushed out the same day to the garden center! I put two pots of pretties together taking Darla to heart with her suggestion. Spike and ivy now adorn the stump with some Viola's for color. Your voice is heard in my Georgia Gardens! I also dug up some of the Vinca from the ground and added it to the round pot. The long pot has the ivy. Hopefully they will grow soon and hide the green tie downs to the pots. I sure hope the pots are accepted in this spot. The squirrels love to chase each other around the stump as if a merry-go-round.I was stuck inside the house with being too sick to go into the gardens for 2 weeks. I longed to be outside but knew it would not be best. I was not sick enough to sit still though. I took up painting. Ha, a painter I am not but I had fun creating and playing with the paints anyway. These are gourds I grew two seasons ago and am just now getting around to playing with them. They are painted, now what to do with them???
I also painted small birdhouses. I finished the last of them last night while talking on the phone with my mom. She wanted to know what I was going to do with them but I told her she had to wait until today's Blog to find out. Can you spot the one I called Halloweeny mom? So here is my grand idea for a project we took on this past weekend. (like the planter was not enough) The Saint replaced our front entry hand railings to the house last summer. I would not let him trash the old ones as I knew in time I would come up with some idea to recycle them. He cut the spindles square for me. He drilled a hole into the bottom of each one and installed a piece of Rebar. We put them into the ground and I topped each one with a birdhouse.I put them along side the Entry to the Semi-Formal Garden. A sort of faux fence. I have always thought the Entry was a bit lonely and needed something. I neglected this garden last year and have decided it is time to give it some attention. I think this is a good start.
I am in the process of taking out the planter where I once put herbs. I plan to divide lilies and extend them on down to the last post. I have ideas running in my head as to what I would like to do here.








While in Tennessee last May, as the rains were coming down, I stopped by the Humane Society's big Yard Sale. I found such bargains as these saw blades. I believe I paid a mere dollar each for them! The cats you see on some of the post were picked up at this Yard Sale also. Can we say bargain...


Look where I put the saw blades! I am dealing with a dry cough now, which is driving me nuts. But that is not keeping me down. I am enjoying creating such things as this FAUX FENCE, In the Garden...
HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY!
Note, I will be off the blog for a bit. Everyone enjoy this awesome spring we are having....
Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team, In the Garden

Gourds Again

By Skeeter
One of the most rewarding experiences of gardening here in my Georgia Garden was the growing of gourds. Why would gourds be so rewarding you may ask? Well, I can dry them and enjoy them in many ways. In the above picture, you see my gourd crop of 2008 drying. Click Here if you would like to see the Posting on my process of Gourd Drying. I turned the larger of the gourds into birdhouses for my feathered friends of nature. The smaller 3 that I have outlined for you, somehow got lost in the fold. I found them recently and decided it was time to play with them. The odd ball one to the right of those, was recently found in my storage closet after I played with the other gourds. It took many months to dry and I forgot about it until spotting it a few days ago, long after I played with the other forgotten gourds. Make note to self: You are not as organised as you think you are.... First step was to spray paint them white.
Here are those 3 gourds now! The two smaller ones are now ornaments which will be placed on my Snowman Themed Christmas Tree! The larger snowman in the middle will be placed amongst my other snowman items for Christmas as well as during the winter months. I had fun crafting with my gourds and even tried my hand at painting a bit with the clown looking ornament. I know one thing for sure, my eyes "aint" what they use to be! I had to wear reading glasses to make these things! Hum, A sign of aging. Sigh...

Now to my crop of gourds for 2009. I had 14 (difficult to see are two different colored gourds already drying to the front on the left side) of them grow for me this go round. With tons of rain fall during the season, some of the gourds rotted. I ended up with successfully drying about 10 gourds.
This past weekend our temperatures climbed to 70 degrees! Yep, we had just under 7 inches of snow on the ground the previous weekend! Gotta love this Deep South living. Ha... With birds singing in the air, the Saint and I had to get the larger of the gourds made into bird houses for our wild feathered friends. If you would like to see that process, Click HERE to see the posting on it from last year.


I am happy to say, we were able to make 3 wonderful bird houses from the larger of the gourds! They are now hanging in 2 Crepe Myrtle and 1 Crab apple trees. The smaller of the gourds remain hanging in the shed to dry or for me to forget about them. Ha, I will find a craft for them in time.
Last year we had 4 gourd houses in place for the birds. The Eastern Bluebirds had two broods in this one gourd-house pictured above. The other 3 were never utilized as we think they were too small. Well, one became home to a very large spider for a while, Yikes!
It was most rewarding to peek inside the gourd house and see the baby blue birds calling it their temporary home! I am so rewarded knowing that I grew the gourd, dried it and turned it into a home for the wildlife! Nature is so rewarding indeed...

We are hoping that all 3 of the new gourd houses will be home to some type of bird this spring. I will keep you posted.

I took the seeds from the gourds and sprinkled them into the once veggie garden for them to take hold for more bird houses next year!

The Saint and I had so much fun growing and playing with the GOURDS AGAIN, In the Garden...


Words and Photos Property of In the Garden Blog Team,

In the Garden

Updates

By Skeeter

I enjoy all the comments from you with each topic I talk about from my Georgia Garden. At times you ask for me to keep you posted on progress with certain topics. I am also curious of how things work out on certain topics in your posts as well. Although I have not been a good reader of Blogs lately because with so much going on in my life these days, I just don't have the time. I promise I will get caught up on blogging some day soon. The heat of summer is setting in and after this current trip to VA, I don't plan on going anywhere for at least a month. Maybe I can get caught up then! So now I would like to update you on some of my past blogs.

Of course the most recent talked about topic was the bluebirds making nests in the gourd we grew! (Click Here to see that topic if you missed it.) That was an awesome experience for me and how surprised I was to peek into the hole before taking the gourd down for cleaning to find the babies still inside the gourd! The Saint and I had thought they had fledged a few days ago as he said he saw a chickadee on the gourd. Well, not so as the babies are still inside on this day of typing which is Wednesday July 1. By the time this goes to posting, I am sure they will be out of the gourd and starting the next chapter in their life.

Last year, I talked about a Rescue we tried on a dogwood tree. The deer decided to make a meal of the tree and we could not let the tree die such a death. So we built a fence around the remaining dogwood. Click Here to see that topic if you missed it.
Update: The little dogwood tree did not make a come back in this spot. Too much sandy soil and not enough rain from the skies above. The fence kept the deer from eating it but the tree was not happy in this spot. So the Saint took it out and put it into a pot for us to baby it for a while. Just look at that sad little tree. Here is the dogwood tree now! Making a slow comeback on the west side of the house under our watchful eye and lots of watering. We will find a spot for it this fall and hopefully the rains will start to fall again by then.
The Saint had something in mind for this spot but once digging a bit, he found rotting roots from a tree we took out a few years ago. This may be the culprit of the dogwood and not just the sand as the roots breaking down were leaving pockets of air for no water to penetrate. So after a bit of digging, he decided to fill the hole back up with dirt and let it go back to grass in time. Look beyond this spot and see what he did plant for me...

A few feet back from that dogwood spot of sandy soil, he found clay dirt! That is how it goes in this yard. One area is sandy and the next area can be clay.But we don't let clay get the best of us. We added bags of dirt to the hole to make a nice new home for my surprise. And the surprise is a Redbud tree! We do not see many Redbuds in our area but enjoyed seeing them with our spring travels in Tennessee and Virginia this year! We enjoyed them so much that the Saint brought one home to me on my birthday! I was not expecting this so it was a wonderful surprise for me. Thank you my wonderful Saint!

Here is the Redbud a few months later with some leaves on her!

I don't know much about Redbuds but I am finding the shape of the leaves really neat!

A nice little heart shape saying "get to know me and love me" which I will do as time continues forward...
I talked about how the Saint and I were Foster Parents to a turtle for a bit. Miss Tuttle has a wonderful new home and we still have the hibiscus plant we bought for her. Click Here to read about that topic if you missed it.

Update: The plant never made it into the ground this spring as planned. It continues to bloom on the front porch but I refuse to bring the plant back inside this winter. A closed door to cats does not make for a happy household. Does anyone want this plant? Come on down to GA and you can have it because I am going to leave it to nature this winter. Remember me talking about the squirrels destroying the Saints Crabapple tree this spring? Click Here to read about that topic if you missed it.

Update: The stovepipe on the tree trunk seems to be working. The tree is growing and the bark is healing. Some of you were concerned about heat building up in the pipe therefore doing more harm. But so far, no damage from the pipe and keeping the squirrels at bay as well. We even have a few crabapples on the tree!
I showed you the suet pole once we completed this project by topping the pole with a "See Rock City" Barn birdhouse. Click Here to see that topic if you missed it.
Update: Even though we put the birdhouse on the pole as decoration, a bluebird built a nest in one of the holes! We had to stop putting suet cakes on the poles as he was fighting with all the birds that came to have a bite of suet. Here he is perched on top of the house keeping guard. The bluebird did not lay eggs in the house and we now have the suet back in place on the pole and all is happy. We plan to take the house off the pole and put screen on the holes to keep birds out of the house. We have birdhouses scattered all over the place and they do not need this one with those available. We like our wildlife to live in harmony and not fight with each other.
I recently showed you how we trimmed the butterfly bushes in the island. Click Here to see that topic if you missed it.

Update: The butterfly bush that we dug out and replanted after filling the hole with soil is now blooming. So it survived being taken out of the ground this spring! I was worried about this bush but no need to worry any more. It is not as tall as the other bushes but blooming and calling in the butterflies. Yippee, I did not loose one of my beloved butterfly bushes!

I asked advice from you all on the Saints Bald Cypress tree. Remember that blog about the twisted branch? Click Here to see that topic if you missed it.
Update: In the first picture of the cypress, I circled the twisted branch. As you can see the Saint decided to let nature take its course so he did not prune the branch. I hope he does not regret this in the future. The tree is doing well and really did enjoy the spring rains. Gee, wish we had some more rain as we are not getting it these days. Sigh, I know that feeling well... No drought this year, no drought this year.... Fingers crossed on this one...

Remember last year how I talked about one of my favorite Crepe Myrtle tree's getting damaged in the bad storm? Click Here to see that topic if you missed it.

Update: We pruned the poor damaged tree down to not much of a tree. We watched a local garden program on PBS that talked of Crepe Myrtles. The suggestion was to prune all but the main trunk's from the ground. So we did. It looked pretty bad don't you think? I was saddened for the once huge tree.

Here she is now almost a year later and looking mighty good! I am waiting for that gully washing rainfall as it never fails to get us once Miss Myrtle is in full bloom! (Do not enlarge this picture or you will see the suckers I have yet to snip. lol)
I showed you my solution for keeping the birds from building nest in the hanging plants this spring. I put the artificial nest and plastic egg in the nest of each hanging plant. Click Here to read that topic if you missed it.
Update: This solution has worked 100% for me! Not one bird has tried to build a nest once I placed the faux nest and egg in the plants! I should market this idea as many people complain about the birds in their hanging plants!
Ah, how could anyone forget the topic of the Saint and I scooping up some Natural Fertilizer? Silver (the white horse) and Georgia (the brown horse) were the providers of the wonderful fertilizer. I had reported that Silver had Crossed over the Rainbow Bridge to be with so many of our pets that once roamed this earth. It was a sad day for Georgia horsey as she really missed her sister horse Silver, as did we...
Update: Georgia's human mommy did not like seeing Georgia depressed about losing Silver. So now Georgia has a new brother. Meet Harley a beautiful horse which will be a new asset to fertilize our gardens this fall! He has such a wonderful personality. He gives kisses too!

I hope I could remember all the UPDATES, In the Garden...

Who will come to get that hibiscus? It awaits your arrival...

Note: I will pop in here when I get a chance. We are visiting Family this weekend!