Mike C's Blog (2)

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Hi everyone…

First, thanks very much for your favorable comments and likes on my photos. I have to say that I’m really enjoing looking at all the photos in this site. They are very inspiring and I’ve seen a couple things that I would like to do in my gardens.

On the subject of birdhouses I want to show you all a birdhouse that I made last winter. I found the post at a local salvage yard. It was a fun winter project.

I have another project waiting for me as soon as it warms up. When I bought my home five years ago I put in a patio next to my garge and then decided that I wanted to cover it with a structure that would support climbing vines. I purchased a pipe frame party tent at a local discount store that was the pefect size for the patio. Once the frame was up I ran heavy wire in each direction on the roof and added extra support posts on each side. I planted Acebea and Trumpet vines and by last summer the vines had completely covered the roof. It was very enjoyable sitting under the vine canopy with the sun filtering through and I loved the natural look of it. Lst month we had a very heavy wet snow fall and the the roof of the structure completely caved in bending and breaking the pipe frame as it came down. Of course now I realize that the structure should have been made from a much stronger gage pipe. A couple weeks ago we had three days of very mild temperatures so I got out there and started to take it all apart. Now I have a large pile of vines,wire and sections of pipes. I have all the vines clipped back to about a foot above the ground. I’m sure that they will be fine and they will grow again. The support posts, trellises and and metal railings are all still standing as they are frozen in the ground. Now I have to decide how I will replace it.
I’ve thought about not replacing it for a while to see if I might like it open. I have several types of bushes planted around the patio so it would still have a garden room feeling. This is what it looked like last July.

And this is what it looks like now.

While looking for the patio photos in my files I found this photo. This is what my back yard looked like when I bought my house five years ago. As you will see, there wasn’t a single plant, bush or tree. The large white circle in the center of the yard is where an above the ground swimming pool sat.

And this is a photo taken last spring before all the blooming started standing in the same spot.

• 24 Feb, 2008
• 1 like

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