Bloomsday is upon us

For those of you following along at home, you may remember that last year we received a small branch of gardenia from John's dad. 2 pots and many moons later it is happy and healthy and it put out a bloom! Just yesterday, a massive flower opened up on the top of the plant. It may be the only one we get this year, but it smells amazing and classes the patio right up. In other news, the 6 unit concrete pad in back of our building is now under construction. At 7:30 on Tuesday the work started. It seems that 2 crews are working simultaneously and it won't be long before that sucker is done and sitting there unsold. It has been fun to watch it being built despite the extra noise. Memorial Day Weekend marked the arrival of a bunch of friends from DC. Unfortunately it rained all weekend, but much fun was had anyway in the form of too much food and drink, too much Rockband for the Wii (they brought it along in a retrofitted suitcase which implies to me that they take the show on the road regularly) and too much Scrabble. A whole bracketed tournament was setup (yes, we are dorks here) and many rounds were played. The victor was neither John nor I but John did make a lovely trophy to commemorate the event. It is now on display in Rockville MD until such time as someone else wins it away from the place of honor on the toilet tank.

The "inscription" reads International Scrabble Home Invitational Tournament. John appropriated an old Land Judging Trophy from his youth. Yes, that is a golden plow on the top. It was a fantastic weekend.

A little more patio.....

Last week, John and I decided to add on to our patio. With all of the herbs and vegetables in containers on the back slab, in addition to our sizable grill, trash can, and small patio table and 2 chairs there was no room to enjoy all the enjoyable items out there. Our backyard is 20' wide by 10' deep before it become "common area" to the Home Owners Association, but the slab was only a meager 10' x 10'. The air conditioners take about about 4' along the fence and that left us with a weird little patch of grass that was just over 6' x 10'. The pic below is the original patio situation.John got out his mad photoshop skillz and did a fantasy/fantastical patio incorporating a number of elements that were cool to both of us and some that were not so. Check out the "land of the lost" lemon trees! Our lemon tree is still a tiny plant, but maybe one day...... Unfortunately, even in a photoshop patio the neighbors still have their grill cover over the fence.

Sorry for the lack of mid-project pics, but here's the run down. After much internet research we drove up to Low Country Pavers in Hardeeville SC (about 20 minutes from us) and after some dithering and pretending we were possibly interested in full price merchandise we went to check out the seconds yard. It was full of remnants from large projects, overstock, or color mixed concrete stones that the color wasn't evenly distributed in. We ended up getting a half pallet of an overstock that we both agreed wouldn't look too strange with a concrete slab. We got it home in 2 trips (so as not to blow out the shocks on the CRV). We also got the easy peasy snap-edge barrier wall from them.

We dug out the 6' x 10' area next to the existing slab and leveled it with a solid clay/dirt/sand mix and put down the plastic edge wall. Then we put in a layer of play sand and got to work on the pavers. I made up a design that was basically 2' squares made up of an even number of pavers. And then we rotated it as we laid it down. It wasn't too hot last Saturday when we did this, but it was very sunny so we put up our sun tent so we could work in the shade. Here's a first row pic.Below is a picture of all the stones in place. John is removing his leveling stakes.

We hadn't put the sand between yet. I liked the colors in the stones. They had some fancy name at the paver yard but I can't remember what it was.
Next we poured out quite bit of sand and swept and tamped it into the cracks. We replaced the sod around the edge too. A week later it is blending in much better.

Here's the finished patio from several angles. We continue to put more sand into the cracks every couple of days and after it rains. I think that we won't have to do that more than twice more. The stones are quite stable and we are both really happy with the extra room!
We redistributed the plants and they are all doing well with more space. The cucumber has a trellis now (next to the grill) and if we can keep it from also wanting to be on the air conditioner, all the plant battles will be fixed.
Who's coming over for barbecue?