Last week, we ended up taking down our dwarf Alberta spruces, mostly because at 8 feet tall, they are giant dwarfs, and also because once they are that tall, you can’t prune them back to, say, 5 feet or anything, because you don’t have enough greenery to work with. Here’s the thing: dwarf Alberta spruces, [...]
Archive for the ‘Maintenance’ Category
How to “Prune” a Dwarf Alberta Spruce
Posted in Before & After, Garden, Maintenance, Tips, Trees on August 22, 2011 |
Pruning a Mugo Pine: Part 2
Posted in Garden, Maintenance, Plants on August 4, 2011 |
Last time we dealt with the mugo pine, we had cut it pretty much in half to see how it looked and whether or not we could live with it. (Full details here re. the whys and wherefores.) We looked at it through the window for a while, and walked by it in the garden [...]
How to Unclog a Soaker Hose
Posted in Garden, Maintenance, Plumbing on June 27, 2011 |
The automatic sprinkler system doesn’t reach around to the front yard, so the front beds have two or three soaker hoses running through them, and they’re now on an automatic timer. That should have taken care of all the watering in the front, except I noticed that in some spots, the water doesn’t spread – [...]
Clearing the Path
Posted in Before & After, Garden, I Need a Nap, Maintenance on June 8, 2011 |
On a lovely hot day of plus 30, it’s wonderful to be out in the garden, working in the shade. Ye Old Path, made of paving stones, that meanders up to the back gate and down to the lower pond, with a patch of grass path in between, was in dire need of sweeping and [...]
Gardening on a Slope
Posted in Before & After, Garden, Maintenance, Plants on April 18, 2011 |
We finished tidying the rocks off of the slope this past weekend, and I cleaned out the crab grass too that had crept through the landscape fabric. In fact, we just took the landscape fabric right out for now. The before, taken in May 2010: And the after, to date:
An Orderly Corner
Posted in Before & After, Garden, Maintenance on April 4, 2011 |
It was supposed to rain at 963 this last weekend, but nobody told the weather that, so it was sunny instead, which meant we got to spend lots of time out in the garden. We now have cleaned up our messy little garden debris corner, and it looks so tidy, I had to take a [...]
Garden Cleaning
Posted in Current Affairs, Garden, I Need a Nap, Maintenance on March 29, 2011 |
Will the garden tidying ever be done? No, Virginia, never.
Update: Sideboard
Posted in Before & After, Furniture, I Need a Nap, Maintenance, Tools on December 14, 2010 |
After I realized that the wood filler wasn’t going to take stain in the refinished sideboard, I had to dig as much of the filler out as I could. Then I rubbed a couple of coats of wax into the wood, attached some knobs that I got from Lee Valley Tools, leaving on two original [...]
Sinks
Posted in Bathroom, Maintenance, Plumbing, Tips on November 29, 2010 |
One night last week, I remembered that I’d been meaning to look at the slow-draining sink in the bathroom upstairs. I got together the baking soda and vinegar (1/2 cup of each) and sent a kettle of boiling water after all the fizz. Funny, it didn’t work. So I tried it again. Still slow-draining and [...]
Washing Windows
Posted in Cleaning, Maintenance, Tips on November 15, 2010 | 1 Comment »
The big picture windows got one of their twice-yearly washes this last weekend. Windows feel fantastic when they’re crystal clear, and one of the best tools around for washing hard-to-reach windows (second floor if you’re standing on the ground or any floor if you’re leaning out over your balcony and reaching sideways) is this professional [...]
