After one of the rainiest months on record for New York we finally were blessed with some dry weather this past 2 weeks. In fact, summer official arrived in New York late last week (scarily late actually) so now it's hot and humid like it should be but at least relatively dry. There were a whole host of projects we needed dry weather for and we've finally had a chance to tackle them. First off we needed to seal the blue slate tile in the front of the house as well as the multicolored slate in the back. Once the slate was sealed we could finally put some planting in the front of the house and relieve that cold, dead feeling out there. The only issue is that the front of our house gets very little sun, maybe 2-3 hours per day in the lucky spots and there is no dirt there so everything would need to go in planters. That started a hunt for plants that 1) could survive through a NY winter 2) with very little sunlight 3) in containers and 4) not grow too wide. As you can probably imagine the choices were EXTREMELY limited. We were able to find some dwarf hinoki cypresses that will grow up rather than out and eventually form a funky spikey foliage pattern when they get a bit older. We also purchased two Silver King Euonymus which will form a sort of hedge along the fence and also grow more up than out with some training. We finally got the use the 4 gigantic high density resin planters that I bought about 2 months ago at Costco which are pretty much the same color as our fence/railings. These were a great find as they are HUGE and we saw the exact same planters at gardening stores for upwards of $70 each. Costco sold them for $19 a pop, so we bought four which was a good thing because they were sold out the next week when I went to get a couple more.
So we got all four of those planter set up this weekend, except for one of the Cypresses since we ran out of potting soil, but it's at least in the planter (but still inside its original container) It's a decent start but I would still like some long, skinny planter boxes with some shade hearty perennials in there. Maybe next weekend. Without further ado, plant modeling! You can also see the sealed blue slate flooring in all of its glory.
Two Hinoki's, suffering from a bit of transplant shock but they will come back to life with some lovin' (and we got them for a deep discount!)
Hinoki up on the ledge with two Euonymus in the background in the lower section
The view from the top gives you a better idea about the placement. Not sure why Eric looks so intense—I guess he takes his planting very seriously
And I'm somehow trying to convince the not-yet-planted Hinoki to hold out until we can get some more soil and plant it properly. However it just looks like I'm molesting it.
Meanwhile, the lack of rain has meant we haven't quite been able to test of patching at the top of the steps yet. We need another wrath-of-god type rain storm to really see if those leaks are fixed yet or what. So far all seems dry but we would rather live with the ugly messing ceiling for a bit longer just to be sure. That seems like a better option than patching it and then having more leaks later on down the line.
Also in house news, we had another cat here for the past 6 weeks as a trial 3rd cat adoption—this is a friend of mine's cat who was looking to give her a large home with other cats to play with. I thought maybe it would be a good personality fit between the new cat Mekare and Jules but it turns out that they didn't get along at all. We kept working on it for 6 weeks to see if there was progress but there was nothing but fighting and Mekare spent most of her time here huddled in the basement in the corner. She was extremely friendly to both Eric and I, like insanely friendly, sit on top of your feet and roll over wanting to be pet, purring at the top of her lungs type friendly with people, but she just doesn't get along with other cats I guess. Or not my cats at the very least. So she went back on Friday and Jules has been much happier since. Monkey keeps looking around for her and can't seem to understand where she has disappeared off to—it's pretty funny. But in the long run this is Jules' house and at 15 years old she has earned the right to be comfortable and not have a disagreeable animal in her living space. Oh well, we tried.
Here's Mekare chilling on our steps (this was a rare sight indeed!)
And Jules keeping tabs on Mekare (another rare site to see them this close and not trying to kill one another)
One good thing about Mekare's time here is that she it seems to have brought Jules and Monk a bit closer. Maybe Jules realizes Monk isn't so bad. Maybe she's just unwilling to share the new blue velvet bed I bought them, who knows. But here's she's giving me a look that says "Sure I'll play nice with the fat black one, just don't bring that damn orange one back"
The rear view
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