Boys Will Be Boys

Posts Tagged ‘backyard’

Do you know what plants are toxic to kids & pets?  Have you ever researched it?  I bet most people would be surprised if they actually did look into it.  I wonder how many people with kids have a yard full of toxic plants. 

Here’s a link for ya~

http://www.ohsu.edu/poison/youAndYourfamily/plantSafety.htm

*I check the web though also with the name of the plant I’m interested in, some lists don’t contain all the toxic plants*

So I bet you are wondering what sparked this whole rambling.

I walk into a well known nursery near us today, hoping to get some more insight on a plant we like.  I was hoping that they could direct me to something non-toxic but similar.  I go check out the plants we like and take note where they are, what the names are and head over to talk to one of the sales lady’s. 

The conversation went something like this:

Me:  Hi, I was wondering if you could tell me whether this plant over here is toxic to kids & pets?  (knowing that it probably is but wanting to lead into my next question).

Sales Lady:  Well, I don’t know.  *leads me inside to another older lady at the register*

Sales Lady to the older lady:  Do you know if Andromeda is toxic to kids & pets?

Older Sales Lady:  *looks at me and says*  There are more toxic than non-toxic so probably so.

So here I am left standing there with 2 women who obviously care less if the plants is toxic, could care less about helping me. 

Me:  Well, ok I’ll check into that myself then.

I felt like saying to them- This is a nursery, shouldn’t you know whether something is toxic to kids? 

Guess time to take my business to another nursery, too bad because I like this one.  It’s close and I buy all my annuals for my front baskets each year there.  I just need to find a nursery with a little better customer service that can help point us to some plants that will work.

I have books and books I borrowed from a neighbor about every possible plant, NW plants, gardening design books..you name it. I’ve read and re-read websites, books and visited a dozen nurseries to look at plants but I feel like I just need someone to help design things with me a bit! 

I’m so behind on posting pictures here or really even talking much about our Never Ending Backyard Project, as I call it.  Let me catch you up!

Years ago when we moved into this house we had visions for our backyard.  Building a deck was one of those visions.  Then we had major drainage issues, we are talking flooding our entire yard!  Each summer after Spring left us, we’d be calling/emailing up the builder of our house to get the landscaping company back out here to try and fix it.  We went through various “quick fixes.” 

Last summer they finally came through with putting in a French drain.  We weren’t happy at all about it going through the center of our yard, nor were we happy that they only replaced a putting green section of our yard (when it was all pretty much drowned out from the rain/ flood) so we fought them a bit.  More sod was replaced and more seeding was done.  They assured us that this was “the” fix and all was done.  Of course I wanted to believe that but I just had this gut feeling it wasn’t. 

This Spring rolls around and instead of flooding the left side, we are now faced with flooding the right.  This was the original good side of our yard really and now our grass was nearly dead!  ARG! 

This brings me to the deck vision.  We put off this deck vision over the last few summers due to – drainage issues, having a baby last year and well finally this summer dove into that head first. (regardless of the issues!) I think we actually just threw ourselves into the project and haven’t turned back.

Carl, our most wonderful next door neighbor/surrogate family member had drawn up our deck plan last summer but …again, that didn’t happen.  Well, he came over in May and was out there measuring this and that.  Next thing I knew he had this fancy smancy detailed drawing of the deck, explaining it to me…(he might as well been speaking French to me!) and I knew we were in good hands!  He made up a material list for us to take around and get the material estimates so we could try to figure out the best deal + estimate out the small fortune this would cost us. 

Without too much boring details.  The materials were ordered – we went with Pressure treated wood for all our supports (this thing isn’t moving and is rain friendly haha) and Composite Timbertech decking (hello low maintenance!).  The boys had the framing done in about a day and 1/2.  My FIL was over with Carl & Patrick in the morning helping out the most tedious task of measuring and reassuring, leveling and re-leveling.  Our most wonderful friend Sam (we have lots of most wonderful people in this post I realized) came over to help and relieved my FIL.  They had that thing framed so quickly and were slapping deck boards on in no time!! I was impressed!  The boards went on in one day, although I think what we did to Sam was borderline Slave Labor.  In my defense, I did try to keep him fed and watered with adequate nourishment…in fact I even tried to make sure he had brownies and anything else he needed!

From there we have been on a whirlwind of projects!  The deck, which seemed like this huge monster project really was just a small start in some ways to what we’ve done since June. This post looks insanely long to me so I’ll save the rest of the details and do a short run-down below!

We now have~

  Raised Cedar Bed built next to the deck as you walk out of my house onto the deck for my future Herb Garden!!!  
  Cedar Garden bed framed for veggies next year    
  Raised stone flower beds & flower beds wrapped around the deck (some starting to get flowers yay!)
  Fire pit area with chairs (we bought some tonight for it! ~not to cool off to break it in!)
  Of course the Deck with new patio furniture so we have a place to sit & enjoy it all!!!

So much more left to do but it’s a start!