This mulch didn't smell too bad. Guess it depends on what type of wood they use to make it. It's black mulch though and the dyes go through the work gloves and it takes weeks to get it out of all the nooks and crannies in your fingers.

Getting too old for all that work. Going to have to hire someone to do it from now on.

Yep, should be a good time... going to the game in DC tomorrow with my son, Dad, brother-in-law, nephew, and a cousin. Good times.

And the MINI run on Sunday is a good route with a stop at a nice place for lunch. Lots of new club members to meet, too. Also good times.

What's your weekend look like ?

 

Bleck, sitting in my office listening to the rain and hail outside knowing my little MCSC is sitting out in the elements.

 

I gotta mulch soon... been procrastinating. For three years. Looks like crapola.

Wash day for Blimey tomorrow. And gotta drop the exhaust and header to fix a leak. And do some work on my water/meth system. So a light day for me.

 

Maybe you've seen these photos before in the Gardening thread but here's why I needed 4 cubic yards of mulch:

This bed is 56 feet long and at it's widest point, 11 feet wide.



This one is 18 feet in diameter.



And this one isn't so small, either.




Man, now that the grass is two years old and a lot of these plants have grown a LOT since these pics... time for new photos. Looks MUCH better now.

 

ouch... when i hear hail i hear $ all over. i get my check from insurance for repair and just pull out my PopWow.

3yrs?! so what's a heavy day for you?

that's some nice landscaping you got there!

but brings back bad memories.... my pops loves doing
landscaping and he always had me help him.

one time he had me redo the bricks leading up to the
rear patio and it was soooooo darn repetitive when i
shut my eyes i saw bricks. when i wanted
to sleep i saw bricks. i was haunted for a
few weeks.

and mulch was never fun.

 

Thanks, Ken.

Yeah, I enjoy landscaping and doing yard work. Some of it more than other, of course. Putting down mulch is near the bottom of my list. Laying bricks... might be even further down if I ever tried it.

 

The grass is hardly green yet, the trees are still leaf-less. etc etc etc. It takes a while up here. haha

 

Note to Self:

Dear Self,

Never move to Minnesota.

Sincerely,
Self

Ps. Don't forget to pick up a loaf of bread tomorrow.

 

By the way, those are pics from April, 2008. Everything is MUCH greener here right now than they appear in those pics. It's been a wet Spring.

 

Well, didn't see much damage when I got home fortunately. Going to try to get some polishing and waxing done to the Mini in the morning and I'll see in the light of day.

 

Yeah, get your car in bright light and then take a good look at several different angles. I had a Nissan 240SX that went through a hail storm once. Thought I found only a dozen or so dings... when it went to the shop, they found more than 60.

Some of them may be so tiny, you will have a hard time noticing them in normal lighting. But hopefully, you have NONE, of course.

How large was the hail ?

 

Yikes...hail sux.

Mulch... So I have lots of beds - it takes an ENTIRE DUMPTRUCK LOAD of mulch to do it all... and takes probably 16 hours of continuous work with the big wheelbarrow to distribute and spread it all - so it usually ends up taking two weekends and a week's worth of weeknights to do it right.

I used to use the shredded hardwood - but have been using pinebark mini-nuggets for the past several years and like them better - they don't fade nearly as fast and you can get by for a couple of years with just "touch ups" using bagged mulch - but I'm WAYYY past due for the big truckload re-do...

 

How 'bout some pics of all your planting beds, Paul. Must be impressive (except for the lack of mulch, that is).

Did you do the landcape planning and all the planting yourself ?

 

I'll try to dredge up pics.

we have about a 4' border around the the back of the house and the deck. Lots of small areas with trees and large shrubs. Large border beds across the front of the house. Two large islands in the front yard, a long border of shrubs down one side property line. I added it up in my head, it's probably about 2500-3000 sqft of mulch space. Then another few thousand sqft of pinestrawed "natural" area behind the house, and about 800 sqft chip mulched swingset area for my kids.

We used a landscape designer to help us with original bed layouts when we built the house. Our landscaper did some of the original plantings. We've added about three times as much stuff since then, built all the block walls around the beds ourselves, added various types of borders, etc. Most of the work was in the first 3-4 years we were in the house... now just in maintenance mode for the past 4-5 years.... whew... makes me tired just talking about it...

Kids are going to outgrow the play area soon... gonna scrap that and build a backyard stone patio / fireplace / pizza oven / kitchen / grill area... maybe... if the economy turns around... and I run out of things to buy for my car...

 

Yep, sounds very nice, Paul.

I know very well how much work that is. But it's some of the most rewarding work you can do... you can enjoy the results for many years.

Yeah, when we bought this house three years ago, it had a big play set with pine mulch around it. LOTS of pine mulch. That area in the back yard with the new grass around the circular bed... that's where the play set was. Talk about work ! Wow. Removing all that pine mulch, putting down 6 CY of top soil, putting down the grass seed and trying to get it to grow during the hottest, driest stretch of that summer, and then building that circular bed with one tree, 18 shrubs, and over 450 flower bulbs.

Sounds like a great plan for your back yard area. Expensive, too.

 

Holy Carp, I'm tired. Blimey never got washed today. Just finished a 10 hour marathon garage session and I smell like a yak.

But my exhaust doesn't leak anymore, and Blimey sounds much healthier. And my water/meth system is considerably nicer than it was when I woke up this morning. But OMG that was a LOT of work.... I've washed my hands four times and they won't even approach getting clean... time for a shower so the dog will start coming close to me again.

 

Cadfael- glad to hear your car wasn't dinged up from the hail.

Blimey- lol, so stinky your dogs run away sounds pretty serious.

I use those hand cleaner pastes (looks like thick yogurt) sold at autoparts stores when I have some seriously dirty hands. Those work pretty darn well.

 

so did all 3 oil changes this morning. for some frikken reason my MCS's oil filter screwed on on the first try. now im thinking there's something wrong... usually i stand there push and twist 5min or longer so can't be this easy. im thinking the o-ring is binding... but i did oil it before screwing it on... something's got to be wrong...

went out for a test drive. recycled old oil so im completely done. i need to wash the Fit's though... maybe tomorrow. wind's picking up today.

 

Griot's say they use COCONUT OIL, not paffarin wax. does not leave behind residue. i might have to try this.

 

Hey gang, I started a gardening thread in Off-topic years ago

Some shots of our gardens from last week.










After I wash Gimli, who has 2500 miles worth of bugs on him, I'll post some new pics from today, lots more blooming.

Mark

 

That first shot looks more like an overgrown abandoned lot than a "garden".

 

Your garden looks like a bunch of Red X's to me, Mark.

I'll see them when I get home tonight. Have to post some new shots of my landscaping and some of the plants in the gardening thread, too.

 

All the plants outside the fence are wild flowers, that first shot is phlox. Roses are blooming, will post later.

Mark

 

All my phlox is about 4" tall.... never seen tall phlox like that - it's pretty!

 

It was just one of the many wildflowers that came in one of the seed mixes I spread a couple of years ago, this is their first year to bloom. Yeah, they are 4 feet tall

Mark