House Shopping aka Looking for a Good Yard for Sale

So I've been house hunting for about two months now. Perfectly good houses have been thrown out of my search for lack of a good sunny yard...or for having no yard at all.

I think I have it narrowed down to three different houses.

One has a good sized, very sunny yard. It's basically a blank canvas waiting to be painted upon. It's very close (2miles) to work, but it backs up to a road.

Another doesn't have much yard to speak of and drops off into the neighborhood retention pond. Sadness because it seems like a great house and ALL of the appliances would stay.

And the last has a good sized fenced yard with a beautiful brick patio. During the showing, the woman across the fence was putting in plants and digging in the mulch (A fellow gardener for a neighbor!) My concern is that we saw the home while it was raining outside, so I'm not sure how much sun it gets and I can't remember if it had a bunch of shade trees or not. I guess if I needed more sunlight to garden, I could take down a tree at last resort. If you haven't noticed, this is the house I'm leaning toward. The kitchen has a beautiful tile backsplash, and there are real wood floors, and a big finished basement/bum room.

My parents are coming into town this week and my realtor is going to show us all three houses. I'm really in need of their guidance here. I really need some feedback and I know they will give me their honest straight forward opinions.

Passover

I must have properly marked the outside of my home and put up the proper sign upon the windowsill because I believe I have been passed over by the mulchers. It feel very blessed. I felt a little bit like the angel of death has passed me by.

I woke up at 8am to the sounds of shovels scraping and a truck idling. I knew they had come. It took everything in me not to get up and go outside on my front step to superivise the goings ons. I tried to stay in bed and listened to the shovels which sounded decently far away. Eventually I got up and peeked out the blinds. All of my neighbors got new mulch today, but I was spared, and I am thankful.

Albino Seedling

Another blogger's post inspired me to share my albino seedling. I'm nearly certain these are all grapefruit seedlings. I put cosmos in this pot and nothing happened, so I threw in a few grapefruit seeds from my breakfast.

One came up completely void of color. It's gotten to a decent size and unfurled two big leaves, but now it's growth seems to be stunted compared to the others.

I'm wondering how common this type of occurrence is. I've never had it happen to me until now.

Good Customer Service & Too Many Pictures

First things first, a shout out to the customer service people at MI Bulb. I was really dissapointed that my Rembrandt order came up as red tulips. The red ones, were nice, but obviously not what I ordered. One e-mail to MI Bulb and they are now sending me a full order of Rembrants, due to arrive on my doorstep in September. No haggling, no drama, just more (the right) tulips. I'm very pleased considering I was prepared to not get any response from them.

Okay, on to second things. Tulips are coming one at a time now. Today a light pink in my pastel grouping. And the peach pastel is turning orange. Lots of pictures below....probably way more than you care to see :)

new pastel pink

pastels

pastels angle 2

pastels angle 3 (I know I couldn't stop myself)

peach turns to orange

As good as it's gonna get

Today a new little peach tulip from my 'original' pastel grouping of about four or five. This is the first tulip this year from that planting.

It really stands out from its pink sisters all in a row. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I really wish I would have planted more of them.

So, just in case the mulch men bring death and destruction to my little plot of heaven on earth, I've taken a few snapshots to document things as they are now, nearly perfect in my mind, or at least as good as they're going to get this spring if bad things come my way.

Today I dug, moved mulch, spread the mulch around the plants, watered plants and mulch, marked the areas where plants are, and put up plant markers. Those markers are not really indicative of what's planted where, but they should be very obvious signs that: something is planted here, hands off.

Tomorrow I will put out my sign when I head to work. Wish me luck. I've done just about all I can think to do. This is about as good as it's gonna get.

I fell into the WalMart

First, a big thank you to Neza for helping me with my translation. Hopefully my message will be clear and they won't think I'm just a goof ball leaving messages in broken Spanish. I will use the simpler version....although I kind of do feel like pleading with them to leave my plant babies alone.

Anyway, I'm so worked up about the mulch and having other people in my garden that I haven't posted about my adventure at WalMart. I went looking for tools, nothing more. I found said tools.

It was at this point I should have left the store, but I couldn't leave without going down every aisle of the garden center (you all understand)

They had cheap potting soil, which has actually turned out to be pretty cheap. It has little gravely bits in mixed in. I guess you get what you pay for. They also had plastic planters made of recycled materials, made in the USA for 88 cents. So naturally I had to buy two of those.

And people, WalMart sells really cheap bare roots plants and bulbs! How did I not know this? Granted you get what you pay for may hold true here as well, but I got to dig in the dirt for several hours and put in 8 daylilies for less than 8 dollars, so I'm content and think it was money well spent. I also got Iris Bulbs for Mom's yard. I am not allowed back in that garden center. I need someone to follow me around and make sure I don't buy any more plants and seeds this season.

My tulips are blooming now which is why I'm so focused on saving them from mulch and shovels.

Lots of photo ops for the lovelies that line my front steps.

Se ruega no molestar

Okay, so it turns out there is no do-it-yourself mulch. I'm totally bummed. And the mulch men are coming Friday or Saturday! This is very not good (muy mal). I just put in bare root daylilies and my dustymiller is coming back from the root. The mulch men will surely put an end to all of my efforts :( So I have a new plan. I'm going to put lots of stuff in my area, potting soil bags, flower pots, planters, shovel, rake, etc. I don't think they'll actually make the effort to move everything. Also I am planning to put all of my empty seed packets on sticks and put them in the ground as identification markers...hopefully this will clue them in that I've planted something. I'm digging up the mulch from the last five or so years too to make it look fresh. Maybe they'll think I already mulched like Jerry and Rita did.

The last part of the plan is a bilingual sign that reads : Se ruega no molestar el jardin. Gracias, la jardinera y los flores.

This is meant to mean: Please do not disturb the garden. Thank you, The gardener and the flowers.

Anyone know if this is an accurate translation? My high school Spanish classes aren't exactly fresh in my mind. I had to take a glance into my Spanish/English dictionary to get as far as I did.

Do it myself mulch?

On my way in to work I noticed two of my neighbors putting down mulch in their gardens today. I am wondering if the mulch was provided by the apartment complex or if they went out and got it on their own. Last year I had the worst experience when the 'gardeners' came to put down mulch. They trampled my tulips....and I was livid. If the complex would let me put down the mulch intended for my apartment I would be more than happy to spread it if it would mean saving my tulips and lilies from being manhandled. I'll have to call the leasing office in the morning to see if they have a do-it-yourself mulch policy.