Because We Just Gotta Have an Afternoon Patio and a Morning Patio

This is the corner of our backyard that used to be Julia's garden, but which was a mess of weeds, raspberries and flowers by the time we bought the house. Little by little, I've been moving the various flowers to different parts of the yard, and some of the raspberries to the kitchen garden near the alley, then digging out the weeds.

That corner also had a small patio, which our neighbors have told us was where Julia's husband, Harry, used to like to sit. Apparently Julia didn't really use it after Harry died. That patio was too small and too sunny in the afternoon for us, so we took those blocks, plus some other materials salvaged from elsewhere in the yard, to make a patio on the east side of the house, which gets shade by three in the afternoon.

But that patio is too bright and sometimes too hot in the morning, when it would be lovely to take tea and the newspaper outside, so we decided we needed a second, morning patio, and realized that the best spot for that was on the west side of the garage—Harry's old patio spot. We figured that a second patio would also allow space for a fire bowl, which doesn't really fit on the first patio because we have a dining table and chairs there. The whole backyard is shady by about 6:30 in the evening, so either spot is pleasant in the evening.

But since it's Sunday and we both want to have a leisurely breakfast and read the paper for a bit before beginning any ambitious projects, by the time we started working on this shady-in-the-morning patio, it was in full sun.

So this is how my husband relaxes on his day off.

After leveling the soil and spreading 15 bags of sand, Craig placed a big honkin' heavy square hunk of cement, which had been sitting by the alley, at a strategic point, which will be where the fire bowl sits.

Then I say, Hey, how about edging that with some bricks? Because I'm full of good ideas like that.

The bricks are a mismatch of some we found here and there in the yard and a few our neighbor was discarding, including this one stamped Purington Paver, which looks kinda like an artifact to me, so I make sure to place it so the inscription will show. (The little square gap will be filled with pebbles or a small plant, I haven't decided yet.)

Over the past couple of weeks, Craig has carted about three dozen or so rectangular patio blocks from the house of a friend who didn't want them anymore; we also collected a few discarded blocks from our neighbor. So we started arranging them in a sort of herringbone pattern. (Yes: "we"; I did help, I'm just not in any of the pictures because I was taking them.) Then, at this point, I say, I think it all needs to be moved about a foot or so to the left. Because I'm helpful that way.

It's just that we needed a little more space between the fire bowl and the chairs; and it did soon occur to us that we could just move the big square far enough over to insert another row of the rectangles, rather than move all of them.

It's about four in the afternoon when Craig puts the finishing touches on the new patio, and sits down to take a little break.

But as it's still sunny there, he soon came over to the "old" patio (constructed two years ago) to join me in the shade. Tomorrow morning he'll head off to work and I'll be in charge of trying out the "morning" patio. It's another way in which I'm helpful.

Another Harvest of Little Blue Flowers, as Henry Hudson Looks On

I'm happy to announce that summer has finally arrived in Minneapolis. A friend recently posted on Facebook an overheard comment that pretty much sums it up for all of us: "Looks like summer finally got the memo."

Although the patio, on the east side of the house, is a little too sunny in the morning, there is a little period from about 9:30 to 10 or so when the huge maple tree across the alley casts a bit of dappled shade just where we need it, so we took our tea and the Sunday paper out to sit on the patio for a bit.

The Henry Hudson rose that we planted next to the patio last summer seems quite happy with its morning sun, though.

Once the patio was back in full sun again, we took advantage of the brief morning shade in one of the sunniest parts of our yard, just west of the garage, to do a little digging and transplanting. It's the previous owner's former perennial garden, which had become a raspberry thicket by the time we bought the house, so we've been having at it from time to time, replanting some of the raspberries to a different spot and discovering what else has been growing there under the thorny canes, besides dandelions and tall lawn grasses, that is.

Among the gems hidden amongst the raspberries was this dictamnus (aka gas plant) that I transplanted a couple of weeks ago. As you can see, it has taken happily to its new home.

Craig digs, I transplant. We have to do this side by side because Craig will go at the job with abandon if I'm not there to say, "Stop! Those are daffodils! And those are grape hyacinths!" (To be fair, the strappy leaves do look a lot like grass by this time.) So, dig and replant was the theme of the morning. I've been trying to do most of my transplanting during the week when he's at work, but last week I was too busy with other things and he was anxious to get on with the job of clearing this area out so we can replant it in some sort of orderly fashion.

There are some pretty blue flowers that I forget the name of (I figured it out last summer, but I'm not sure where I wrote it down; some sort of verbena or vervain, I think). I transplanted a few clumps, but much of it is overgrown, falling open at the center, and the lower leaves are looking spotted and unhealthy, so I am only transplanting the separate stands here and there that are smaller and healthier. However, I hate to throw the pretty blue flowers in the compost, so I harvested nearly all the stems from the big clump and brought them inside for a bouquet.

I also hated to toss the confetti of little flowers that fell on the counter top while I was trimming the stems, so I gathered them into a small bowl and placed it on the table to be ready to catch some of the others that fall. It's not the best florists' flower, for all of its flower-shedding tendencies, but I sure like that riot of little blue blossoms.