Garden Pic Wednesday: Spring Projects 2018!

Spring projects abound this year!

One of my larger projects is adding a pattern of blocks along the border of this bed.

This bit of yard is in front. it's a 10 x 10 corner between the paved driveway, the neighbors property and the gravel parking space apparently too hot and dry for grass to thrive. Most of it died.

So I decided to take advantage of situation to rework the area:

The plan is:

1) Dig up excess Liriope in the border next to the gravel drive spot. (That's the grassy looking stuff.)  Try to kill off what's wandered into the driveway.

2)  Make generous use of landscape plastic where I don't want the Liriope to come back.

3)  Arrange the blocks with spaces between for planting.

4)  Spread mulch over bedding area and between blocks.

5) For area outside the blocks: remove any grass, rake smooth and prepare two spots for ground cover Creeping Thyme plants due to arrive in the mail very soon.
They'll get landscape plastic and mulch around them, too, so they can grow without competition.

Hopefully the Creeping Thyme, which likes sun and doesn't mind dry will spread and take over, resulting in minimum mowing for that area.

A second small project was repainting all these plastic pots:

They were all different shades of very worn looking green. I accomplished refurbishing them by spraying them with a combination of Granite spray and whatever else I had on hand: a burnished brown spray and some Mirror spray to get this look.

I learned some good lessons about using that Granite-look spray for refurbishing plastic containers.
 If you think it will give plastic an instant "cement" container look, it won't really, though it will give it a fine sandy texture, but to be really successful getting a good looking sandy texture, you'll need to do the following:

1)  Plan on at least one can of Granite spray for every medium size container. Bigger containers will need more cans.

2)  If your plastic container is not already the same color as your Granite spray, spray paint the container with a matching color first, let it dry, then use the Granite spray to add texture. Then it will work effectively. 

Lastly, a nice shot of a Mockingbird nest a pair are in progress of building:

This nest is in my large Gardenia shrub out front, at about eye level if I spread some of the outer branches so I can peer in.
Though it looks like a wad of sticks, it's actually a intricate weave of sticks with a deep center they're still working on filling in. It's really quite interesting.
I don't see when they're working on it, but everyday there's more to it!