I was going great guns until the Ysabel Yncident. 🙂 A little harder to go for the daily walk when you’re on killer antibiotic…just not quite the energy to spare. But it’s a lot easier than going for the walk when you’ve got a raging systemic infection, so, well, we’re not complaining.
We live in an area of 1950’s vintage, next to an area of 1930’s homes, in a climate where gardening is more than possible, and it’s an interesting walk in any direction. You find out details. Most houses in Spokane proper have basements. The houses across the arterial from us don’t—they’re sitting directly on the basalt, with a thin veneer of lawn. We have more depth, but they threw the excavation dirt from our basement (glacial moraine) atop the dirt we had, then added an even thinner veneer of dirt. So our block has either struggling, forever-being-watered lawns, or the owners have gone to big drives and beds of trees and bushes and mulch, on relatively smaller lots. We have about the biggest lot, twice the size of some, and, crazy us, decided to join the trees-bushes-mulch crowd.
Across the arterial, the basalt drove some people who wanted basements to do the California style, 1960’s-70’s style, ie, a more shallow basement excavation and part of it above ground as a sort of a half-buried lower story. That’s pretty popular. Then there are those that went for raaaaaaaaaaaaancher, ie, like ours but extended sideways: a fair hike from one end to the other, and all of it ‘finished’. As half our basement isn’t, but we like it split that way. And the ones who built ‘up’ for a second storey, or added on—one house has a lovely huge patio on the second level, on the roof of their garage.
Interesting is the word for the architecture around here. One house we looked at was from the 1800’s, and the basement was a bit of a maze; another was from the 1925-30’s era, and I think got through Prohibition by having their own speakeasy in the basement, which was redecorated in the 50’s, but I’m pretty sure there could have been some home brewing going on down there, and most houses don’t have a dance floor, however tiny. 😉
We live within hiking distance of 3 parks, old, old parks, with towering Ponderosa pine. I think I’ve heard that the same guy who designed Spokane’s parks was the guy who worked on Central Park in NYC. The idea is that every neighborhood has a green space of trees, where you can go and decompress—and they’ve become venues for dog walking (Corbin), for children’s playgrounds, including water jets (Shadle), and for art fairs and concerts (Coeur d’Alene Park)…and then there’s huge Manito Park, with its rose gardens, huge rolling lawns, etc, near the Japanese Garden…just a very nice aspect of this little big city.
I wish there were something like the Japanese Garden around here. With Honda’s engine plant 5 miles away, you’d think there’d be something like that, but not many Japanese employees at that plant. Some, but not enough to influence the neighborhood. I know it takes years to get the garden the way you want it, and it’s always a work in progress. I liked the peace and serenity of the garden there in Spokane. A haven in a busy place.
If I weren’t so darned lazy, I could probably build up a really nice garden here. No motivation, it’s not my house, and just trying to keep up with the bills is killing me. I have a “proper” basement, but not a “proper” foundation. It is concrete block at the base and then 18 inches of field stone on top where the sill meets the foundation.Because the house has shifted so much, the ground has settled, and heck, maybe seismic action (yes we do!), the foundation is cracked in several places, the mortar between the field stones has rotted away, and whenever it rains, I have a river in the basement to the sump. In May, the sump pump didn’t stop for almost the entire month. Other than having “This Old House” come in and figure out how to fix it, I don’t think there’s any chance this is going to be rectified in the future. There are limited funds for the upkeep of the house, and the vinyl siding that was put on in August was not insulated, as we were led to believe. Well, maybe it’ll help cut some of the cold wind that seems to find its way into the house.
We have several small parks, mainly for children’s recreation, although the main municipal park has the city swimming pools, a lake for fishing, a huge set of soccer fields, softball fields in every section of the park, and there are probably 6 or 7 sections now. Picnic areas, a hiking trail, and certain geological exhibits make up part of the park. Main problem is that it’s patrolled at random times, and the deeper areas have become havens for people dealing drugs. The park is closed after dark, and closed to motor vehicular traffic between Labor Day and May, but that’s not much of a deterrent. I’d be afraid of vandalism to a place like the Japanese Garden if it weren’t watched 24/7/
We are in one of the older neighborhoods in our town, ca. 1970. Many of the houses in the surrounding blocks are still owned and lived in by the original families that bought and built them, making the area very stable. The one drawback is that, as the neighborhood expanded, the county started putting utilities like electric and phone cables underground, but not bothering to retrofit for the original core. Our overhead cable has been snagged 3x in the past 2 months and pulled down by trucks cutting through on their way to the highway. The universal response to complaints about this seems to be, “Well, put up a mast so the cable will be high enough not to get snagged.” So I get to haul something tall and heavy enough to hold a 40′ run of coaxial up to the roof and secure it, then have the cable company reposition our wiring. Sigh.
Although green lawns are at least somewhat de rigeur here, I refuse to pour valuable fresh water onto sandy dirt wich won’t hold it. I’m trying to go with mostly xeriscaping (rocks, succulents, hardy locals and cacti), which looks a little tatty at times, but much easier to maintain.
One of my uncles had the same problem with one of his lines (I can’t recall if it was phone or power). It had to cross a two-lane road where the traffic included cattle trucks and farm equipment, and every year or so something would hit the line. I think the co-op finally raised the level of the drop so it was out of reach, mostly because they were tired of fixing it..
One thing some people do here, who are in Situations, is pots: we saw a massive growth of petunias this morning around the base of a pole, then realized—it was a pot drawn up against the pole. We have another house on the street behind us which has impressive petunias—and we have wondered how they do it: yes, pots. We have spotted them coming out to water at 7 am: and the growth is lush. One place has a petunia tree: a steel pole with rings about it, and the rings support big pots: it’s quite the sight when it’s in full bloom: definitely Michael Whelan colors, reds, oranges and purples. I’ve also seen pots arranged in a pyramid, absolutely glorious heaps of various flowers.
Petunias are a plant for which I have a very black thumb. I have killed whole flats of petunias. Catteleya orchids—no problem: I can grow them; roses; flowering trees; portulaca in cascades; even azaleas and rhododendrons, alyssum and strawberries, apples, and johnny-jump-ups, and iris—tons of iris. But I cannot grow a petunia to save my life!
Even folks with acreage do focal pot arrangements! My front steps (14 of them) have a collection of ceramic potted blooming lavender plants on both sides right now with some apricot wallflowers at the bottom in larger pots. I haven’t seen any orange petunias (or I’d be growing them with purple in my front yard pots)?!?
CJ…are you growing Cattleya species or are they hybrids in the Cattleya Alliance? Over here on the gentler ‘wet’ side, I can grow some Laelias outside most of the year. And anything with Sophronitis or Epidendrum in it seem to do great…but the species Cattleyas are trickier for me. Since I prefer yellow or orange flowered orchids, the SLC’s seems to be my best option.
I’ll bet the lavender pots are gorgeous. And there are orange-ish petunias, or at least peach-ish, among the new colors.
I used to have an attached greenhouse, 5 residences ago: I had the big purple ones, monster plants, and they bloomed so nicely, some moth orchids…and then alas, I went on a 3 week trip and my mum, bless her good intentions, thought if they were orchids they needed to stand in water…
I’ll be looking for orange petunias in the spring then….but I may have missed them if they are a pale orange. It takes some intensity to trigger my gotta-have-it gene.
I’m saving to put in a solarium at this new house. I have so many potted plants that stay outside a lot of the time but can’t take temperatures below 40F or so. So they have to go in the garage which just doesn’t have enough light. It’s OK if they are dormant, like fuchsias and most of the South African bulbs….but my citrus etc still have leaves. And often ripening fruit. The solarium will also help some of my hardier potted orchids, but not the more tropical ones. Those have to make due in the west-facing living room window and they survive. But they aren’t thrilled. Not enough humidity. Enough light though….does that mean I need a heated greenhouse also? Maybe my solarium will have a divider (grin)….and I do hope to have a above-ground koi pond-let inside for at least a few koi. I love the metallic ones with orange/black/white (can’t remember all those Japanese names for koi colors). Then I can have koi without having to have mesh all over everything to deter the great blue herons. Dreams dreams dreams….
I’d give petunias less care – they don’t need much more than water and sun. (Remember, they’re related to tomatoes and eggplants.)
That would be Frederick Law Olmsted, wouldn’t it. You might find this URL interesting: http://www.halcyon.com/tmend/Olmsted.htm#Spokane
You’re right. It’s wonderful how many little parks there are: and they don’t have to have tons of equipment—just a beautiful growth of trees: shade, lots of shade. It’s pleasant walking even in August. You go there, just to be cooled off.
I live on a typical modern British housing estate. Cookie cutter builds with occasional originality (mine being one because they rotated the plan by 90 degrees). No front lawns because builders stopped ‘wasting’ land on frippery years ago (very new properties might not even anything other than space for a patio at the rear apparently). There’s enough ground between house and road to park a couple of cars and that’s it.
Brackley isn’t a bad looking town overall but when the ground is dry I prefer to head out into the fields to the west. I can be out in the countryside in ten minutes at the moment but apparently there’s going to be a strip of development if the economy ever picks up that’ll add fifteen minutes to that.
Still – there are far worse places to live and least I am basically a rural resident 🙂
I have a tiny 300-yr-old cottage, 2 stories, in a small row, in an idyllic rural situation in Norfolk, UK. I am so happy with it … the previous owner managed to finagle the whole row’s gardens into one for this cottage, and the rest have to make do with wedges of a piece behind the house next door. his reason was – he wanted a smallholding, so he built corrugated iron sheds enough for 7 sows, a pony, chickens, onion drying shed and more … also this office is a converted large shed or stable 2 strides from my kitchen door, flint and lime mortar and hand made terracotta tile construction like the house. when we stripped off the plaster upstairs we found the dividing wall to next door was an ancient curvy timber construction .. it had to be covered up again for sound insulation and fire, sadly … there are one and a half bedrooms upstairs and one living room downstairs, which probably housed a whole large family in the late 1800’s with an enormous fireplace housing the range and early 1900’s – before that it was a granary for the postmill which was at the top of my garden … corrugated iron sheds have been converted to wood siding and tile buildings, for storage, kiln shed and pottery workshop. after 10 years almost everything that needed doing has been done, although it’s fun to think what might perhaps be done as well …
So much of America was built after people went to codes and standards—we just expect every outer door to be 36″, and rectangular, every stairs to have a certain pitch, with treads of a certain width; and our furniture is generally made to fit through outer and inner doors, outer only in the case of living room furniture.
But things older than the code—are scarcer and scarcer, as regulations force owners to make modifications as per the code. If you get declared a historic place, there’s a different set of rules, but our little half-century old house is not quite a historic place. I do regret to report whoever built our stairs (whisper) did not have the code in mind. But you don’t want the city to notice that.
My eyeopener on the charm of places not built to the same set of measures came when I went to Europe. I recall staying at the Cathedral Gate Inn, I think it was, in Canterbury in England—and we had one of the upstairs rooms. Getting our luggage upstairs was a challenge: our largest suitcase was hard to maneuver in the stairway; and when we got to the room the ceiling was incredibly close: a wonderful old beam crossed the room right above the bed, right in reach, and it was one of the oddest places I’ve ever stayed, architecturally. The little restaurant figured in one of the landmark court cases in the matter of church and state: the property backs onto the grounds of Canterbury Cathedral, so half the dining room of the restaurant is on church land, ergo subject to Canon Law, and the other half is in the town, subject to civil law.
Well, back in the day, two guests had a falling out, and it led to a stabbing right in the dining room. You guessed it. The dead guy fell onto church property. The perpetrator stood on town land. They had a heckuva case about whose jurisdiction it was, and it helped define what we in the States call the separation of church and state.
It’s a wonderful place, one of my fondest architectural memories of my trip. And it should still be there. It’s been there since the 1400’s. http://www.booking.com/hotel/gb/cathedral-gate.en.html?aid=330632;label=gb-cathedral-gate-JvioTkkBXFcgF29KVQIpWgb
oh you can touch beams in my bedroom, the bed is under the steep slope of the rear roof. though I sleep in one of my sheds in the summer – with french doors open onto a verandah and the garden, the wild bit … we are so lucky not be troubled too much by biting insects here.
sounds a wonderful hotel .. probably a lot of old inns will go back further in time than one imagines … having always had a reason to be there.
Yes, somebody in the reviews was *complaining* about the design and wanted the place modernized. Aaagh. A sacrilege.
Hah – I can touch my ceiling but that’s because builders are stingy more than anything. It’s typically cheap construction. Four outer walls then the rest is stud partitioning – they didn’t even bother with sound proofing upstairs. It does the job but I sometimes wonder how long houses like mine will really last. I just can’t see houses like these still standing in 300 years let alone anyone cherishing them :-/
A late thought about building codes. I wonder if future archaeologists will see the change from imperial to metric twenty years ago? I don’t know how many measurements physically changed though and how many just got relabelled. Kitchens appear to be metric in the UK – everything is multiples of 150mm. Based on my house doorways are 760mm wide but that’s suspiciously close to 30 inches.
I would love to get phlox growing here and spreading out like I see the blankets of flowers around the older houses in town. I tried a couple of years ago and they all died off. 🙁
Daffodils, Joe. You can buy them at Lowe’s by the sackful. You just plant them randomly about, right through the lawn, like crocus. Ditto iris, though they prefer a little bed to start in. They multiply, they’re winter-hardy in most places, and they’re happy in most soils. Add your phlox, and alyssum and johnny-jump-up in a few pots or beds, and you could have some very happy bees. Our alyssum comes back in big beds on pondside every year.
I have to say that you need to be careful of your sources for daffodils. Many of the cheaper sources have bulbs that are infected with either lesser or greater narcissus bulb fly. Also, Fusarium oxysporum f. sp. narcissi, which causes basal rot, is common in cheap bulbs.
Also try these guys:
http://www.highcountrygardens.com/
They have about a zillion kinds of irises and crocuses, as well as daffodils.
You might also want to try http://www.johnscheepers.com/index.html
https://store.brentandbeckysbulbs.com/
One of the better daffodil sources unless you are willing to dabble in the multiple $$$ per bulb category. Admittedly, I’m a daffodil addict who has collected them for decades and had success and failures along the route. But you Do have to pay attention to which ones are best suited to your soil and climate, i.e. you make different choices if you live in the California Bay Area than you do if you live in the Pacific Northwest.
And you plant them in the fall, right, Haika?
Yes. But some of the cold-storage paperwhites etc for forcing are also offered in the winter. Those aren’t hardy in Washington, but rebloomed fine in the ground for me in the Bay Area (California). I LOVE daffodils and am working on putting in a daffodil border right now around my circular drive in the front which is overplanted with catmint and daylilies. I plant a few hundred more daffodils each fall.
Talk about bee-friendly; catmint attracts LOTS of bees! Not sure what cats do with catmint….I don’t have cats. But I adore the purple-blue flowers over a very LONG season and the blue-gray foliage.
And I put crocus (fall and spring versions) in my lawn like you recommended for daffodils. And hope the squirrels don’t find them all (wink).
CJ – What iris are you growing? Rhizomatous, bulbs or what? Iris have an amazing range of types….I tend to stick with rhizomatous groups like Siberian iris and some selected bearded iris. I’ve grown some of the bulbs (Dutch and some of the teeny tiny ones)….but they weren’t as vigorous and seemed better suited to the specialty rock garden. And I’ve grown some native West Coast iris from seed (I. douglasii and hybrids of this species – rhizomatous). Most of those stayed at my old house as I couldn’t dig ALL my plants and bring them with me (sigh). So the bulldozers got ’em (another sigh).
Bearded iris, the biggest ones, including some dragon-tongued white and also black; small stand of Siberian, that’s new, but mostly the big ones. We may hold another iris purge this next spring. I’m very unkind to them—they get roughly divided, tossed in the ground, barely covered, and they grow like mad. The big thing with iris, though they’re a bog plant, is drainage. They like water, but they’d rather grow in near-sand than too moist and rich a soil.
I have irises by my patio, by the entrance to the garage, I have tulips in the front yard, daffodils all over, day lilies all over, and then, there are the wildflowers that I am averse to mowing because I don’t know if the bees are working them for pollen or nectar.
There are a bunch of things I’d like to plant, and next month, I’m supposed to get two cherry trees, one a Bing the other a Red Tartarian, so they will be able to cross pollinate. I’m not so worries about getting the fruit right now, and besides, it’d be years, anyway, as just having the darned things grow. My last 3 attempts failed miserably.
I would probably get premium bulbs from say, Jackson & Perkins, or one of the other more reputable suppliers. Lowes is fine for a lot of plants, but for perennials, I’m going to stick with a better source. Also, I have 1/2″ hardware cloth that I form around the bulbs so that squirrels and other critters have a difficult time digging them up.
Thanks….I was trying to envision which iris were so vigorous for you. There are so many Iris that are tricky and work better in alpine/rock gardens. Like Iris reticulata….lovely blues, teeny plants….NOT bog plants. HATE being wet during summer. And others are definately aquatics…NEED to be in wet soil. BIG GENUS (wink).
Just a mile or so away is a big bearded iris nursery or at least there was a couple years ago. Haven’t gone by them recently. But those aren’t my favs….
Nothing that requires any type of cold treatment will grow here. I might be able to cold force some bulbs, but that would mean sticking them in my fridge for weeks, and they would only go once; not a good investment of fridge space! Orchids, OTOH… I actually have dendrobiums blooming for the third go-round, and they are throwing off keiki which are also thriving. As long as I water them daily, they seem happy enough. I have to grow plants that like hot, dry conditions; even the Italian cypress I am attempting to grow as a sun hedge on the W side of the house struggle, and I water them every other day!
Our neighbor’s bees were passionately enthusiastic about our echinacea, which I have lots of because it tends to come back year after year, and the rudbeckia as well (and the phlox but its gone now). The bees also swarmed around the Annabelle hydrangea and the tree hydrangea. Just sayin’.
Our house – the one we sometimes refer to as Malguri, saving your grace – is old for the US- 1765 – and definitely neither built to code nor renovated to code. Beams everywhere, wide wide chestnut floorboards, and leaky with many critturs able to visit inside. We’ve had bats, flying squirrels and of course the ubiquitous mice, which the cats don’t seem to contain very satisfactorily.
Sounds wonderful!