Design Workshops

“Garden Bloggers’ Design Workshop” – Garden Benches

ESPatch Apr 3, 2010 21 comments

“Smell my finger”…

Err…”No Thanks”!

I would rather smell this, thank you very much! The aroma from my

Pittosporum tobira ‘Variegata’

or more commonly known mock orange, is hard to put into words. It is filling the entire back quarter of the patch with the most amazing scent right now, in fact, I am making fake journeys and excuses to go back there just to catch another whiff of it.

The sweet orange blossom aroma from this shrub / small tree will perfume a garden with an aroma that will last for weeks. It makes an excellent specimen plant and a beautiful tree form when trimmed correctly. I have trained mine in the same fashion that I do with my mountain laurels, Vitex and Opuntia …that is as high as possible.

Now to business…

The past few days in the Patch I have spent contorted into unusual body positions, performing unusual maneuvers with rather antiquated tools, namely a hand saw, a screwdriver and a drill, I ache in places I never even new I had. What was I doing? Well for some strange reason I sort of fell into a project that I have been thinking about for ages. I have just never really known how to get started or where to begin. Having some spare lumber already on hand to form the backbone of the project, I decided it was time to jump in and give it a bash. I was going to build a bench!

“I am Maximus Decimus Meridius and this garden bench SHALL prevail”.

It turned out that this activity was perfectly timed with The Garden Bloggers’ Design Workshop – “Garden Benches”, over at: http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/?p=11763

This bench would not be planned, it would not be exact, it was not going to adhere to any ergonomic standards, in fact the whole thing was going to be improvised, winged, made up on the spot…

No spirit levels, no circular saws and strictly no set squares, oh no, that would make the job too easy. It was either going to end up looking like something from the Beverly Hillbillies or miraculously turn out looking like something that resembled a garden bench, I had no idea.

My intent was to develop some form of seating between these two trellised vertical posts, I say “some form” as I really had no idea what was going to form, or how I was going to build it. The two posts were also not aligned, the right one was actually twisted…mmm, I would deal with this little inconvenience later I told myself. Early on in the non-planning stage it slowly dawned on me that the Mexican weeping bamboo that I had only removed from the front of my house a couple of weeks back was slap-bang in the middle of the right hand side of where the future “seat” needed to be. As much as I dreaded digging the beast up once again it just had to be done.

A few Home Depot brackets and a bit of concrete later I had the skeleton of my Frankenstein’s bench blocked out. Photo courtesy of elder Hobbit.

I was determined at this point, that whatever I built, it was going to have a building code equivalent to Fort Knox…oh yes, this bench was going to be solid and quite large as it turns out.

Putting on the seating slats had to be one of the most mundane jobs…ever, especially considering that I was screwing everything down by hand, it took me the best part of three hours, each panel having four screws in it. While I was performing this mind-numbing task I actually taught my daughter the meaning of the word “tedious”, just to take my mind off it. The smell from the blooming Meyer lemon was the only thing that kept me sane.

Here is the final Alice in Wonderland throne in all her pre-stained glory. In order to secure the backboards to something in the middle, I found that I required yet another post to be concreted in for support, digging that hole was such a joy! Not! I used the top of this new post for a small shelf, I figured it may come in useful for something in the future, like citronella candles! You can see it behind “Alice”, she is already hosting a tea-party on it!

“Interesting proportions ESP.”

Likewise Helena !

The bench seats all members of the Patch with room to spare! Just a couple of finishing touches…

Well you have to have one of these…

“Nice touch ESP”!

…and a couple of lucky horseshoes to ensure your arse stays splinter free! Now I need a few more coats of stain, a seating mat and some pillows and its done. An improvised bench that took three days. My oldest hobbit calls it the garden sofa, me? I have many names for it, most of which will make your hair curl!

This new bench offers a great lounging place from which most of the garden can be viewed, in the shade!

The unintentional over-sized proportions really gives it a sense of presence in the Patch…where has it been all my life! I have another two vertical beams that I am thinking I may use to construct another, but not until the memory of building this one fades into my subconscious.

Oh no! no-one is getting out of here without another four nerve daisy plug.

Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop

ESPatch Aug 11, 2009 3 comments

“Time in a Garden”

So this month at:
http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/?p=7073
the workshop topic is the influence of time on our gardens.

I first started this blog almost a year and a half ago, it has taught me
and forced me, in a good way, to learn more details about the plants
and critters that inhabit my habitat, but first and foremost up-keeping
this journal has taught me about the time/space continuum.

“Spock, what IS he talking about”.
“Unclear Captain”.

It has documented once a week, (almost without fail),
the growth of my hobbits, and in parallel, the maturing
of my garden, and my knowledge of the beasts, and
characters that reside in it.
The creatures that call it their home…
and there are quite a few…

William Wallace, Compost Burper, Botox Lady, Nabooboo tribe, Cactus man, and finally the ESP witches, not to mention..

The Intergalactic singer, Bill and Ben the holey rock men and last (and nearly deceased), Cactus Man, – a veritable east-side-cast of motley patch characters.

Unfortunately the sands
of time have not been kind
to the poor old “Cactus Man”:

It was quite disturbing to track his demise through the lens of a camera,
I could feel his pain as he took on a rather horrific persona. I felt bad
knowing that I was was the one responsible for his premature aging.
His head finally buckled backward toward the Texas sun,
as he exhaled his final breath, and for no apparent reason,
he screamed in a squeaky cactus voice with a fake Scottish accent…

“Freedom.”

(I think he must have been speaking with William in his final days)!

Note to self:…Next time I will not carve features all the way “through” the paddle.

Gardens take time, and are a lot of work.
The patch seemed insurmountable at
times, but to me, starting was the
hardest part. Then came the frustration
at how futile all the work seemed.
Then came the realization at how long
it was going to take. Then It became
a quest, then a passion, then ultimately
a complete obsession. Gardens
teach about time, because they take time.

Some of the following before and after shots
I have posted before, but they seemed quite
apt for this month’s theme. They highlight how things
have changed over a three year period here,
in the ESP.

You can see the whole left side of the property was obliterated by the
tunnel of trumpet and wisteria vines (left). I thought the tunnel was
an interesting idea when I started it but when the vines matured,
they visually shrunk the garden by about a third from the view on my back deck.
It was also quite nasty to walk through, lots of webs and unmentionables just
waiting to fall down your neck, causing the obligatory physical conniption.
I decided to completely overhaul this whole area to widen the view,
it was beginning to feel claustrophobic, and visually cluttered.

Pulling a pathway around the right side of the small circular bed in the foreground
created a lot more “breathing space” and allowed a more natural angle to exit
the steps down off my back deck.
The left picture shows how it looked before my skinny island “middle” bed
gained any definition. Time has really brought some visual quietness into
the patch through the creation of definition and order.

Here is the island middle bed when I first started in September last year:

Quite the construction site, the soil in here was terrible,
compacted and full of trash. Here it is today. This bed
has endured the central Texas drought with very little
additional water.

Okay, the small Mediterranean
fan palm on the right required a
little bit of the wet stuff
to get it started.

And here is a before and after of my circular bed.

Other East-Side Occurrences this week…

Cnidoscolus texanus
I was ripping up some weeds around one of my pampas grasses
with some gloves on, when I grabbed a swath of this monster. Even
with covered hands these spines went into the top of one of my
fingers, it felt like I had just had some Novocaine injected into my knuckles!
With other common names like Bull Nettle, Tread-softly, and
Finger Rot, you can tell that this is a plant that demands respect.
If any part of the stem is broken, a milky sap appears,
and some people are allergic to this as well
as the “sting” of the hairs.

Most parts of this vicious plant are covered with hispid or bristly hairs.
But these are not normal hairs, oh no, not normal at all
– and they really hurt.

Here is how this plant’s effective defense mechanism works:
If the foliage or stems are touched, the glass-like hairs break off in
the skin and act like hypodermic needles. The “needles” release
a toxin (and I can vouch for this) which causes an intense burning
sensation. This effect is a type of allergic response known as contact
urticaria, the reaction can last for several days.
I could not clench a fist due to the sensation of
“pressure” in-between my fingers for 24 hours.

Moving On…

A rare shower in Austin was almost enough to fill my
red-neck tank / everything but the kitchen sink, rain water
collection “system.” This paper wasp wasted no time in
quenching his thirst.

With the uncustomary moisture, this Mexican Petunia
Ruellia brittoniana responded the next day
with a flurry of blooms. I have this one embedded in a slow draining,
sunken rubber container to contain it and also because it does like some moisture.
Mexican Petunia audibly “pops” when the seed pods
receive a little water, sending seeds jumping all
around the adjacent area. Watch out, they
germinate readily.
It blooms on and off all summer.

Here is the tub in the foreground when this bed was Spot the buried petunia tub?
being created, some years back.
We still had a lot of bermuda grass
back then, as you can see.

Same area matured – image taken toward the end of last year.

I now have TWO curving culms on my Giant Timber Bamboo!
Look at the powder on the new growth, it is apparently good
for the skin? I have no idea what is causing this crazy bamboo
snaking habit,
but I like it!

Did you know that bamboo
was actually the first plant to
re-green after the atomic
blast in Hiroshima in 1945?

And finally…

Amaranth pushing up among the feather grass, getting
prepared for it’s spectacular fall bloom. I always allow
select plants to mature from seed, so long as they are
located in the right position, like these that line the
edge of my pathway.

All material © 2009 for east_side_patch. Unauthorized
intergalactic reproduction strictly prohibited, and
punishable by late (and extremely unpleasant)
14th century planet Earth techniques.

Inspirational Image of the Week:

Pierre Haulot and William Boullier have produced
an innovative watch concept where time is viewed
as a ‘progress bar’.

Stay Tuned For:
“Head above Water“

Design Workshops

“Garden Bloggers’ Design Workshop” – Garden Benches

Pittosporum tobira ‘Variegata’

Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop

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