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The garden plot and putting up

 At home we have two garden boxes and a dozen or so pots of herbs, along with a half dozen tomato plants in the ground and—of course—fruit trees, but by far, our most successful vegetable growth is coming out of our half plot in the community garden. Broccoli comes along when we work in the…

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Check-in: fruit trees

 If you’ve been following along, you may remember that we planted an elderberry, a serviceberry, a Carolina rose, a black chokeberry, two paw paws, and three spice bushes in the backyard a few weeks ago. (AND a snowberry—whose berries are not edible—outside of the fenced area.) One spice bush has been slow to put out…

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We’ve got ferns—and thyme, too.

 A few weeks ago I went on a shopping spree at Holly, Woods and Vines in Alexandria. It’s a magical plant playground and I want to buy every plant they sell because they all look amazing. If they sold potted poison ivy it would probably look amazing and I’d probably buy it*. *I am very…

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Reupholstering the dining room chairs

 We picked up our mid-century American of Martinsville dining room set (tallboy, credenza, bar cart, table, and chairs) at the small vintage shop Off Main (in Catonsville, Maryland) about a year ago when we were living in the Newton Street apartment in DC. At the time I gave the tallboy, credenza, and bar cart some…

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Dealing with the rain

 This is what our driveway looks like when it rains: Generally a bad situation (and something we’ve been worrying about it), but made a lot more pressing earlier this week by the heavy rains and flash flood warnings in our area. Jamie chose to do something about it: he went out and he dug. He…

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First yard projects

 It is decidedly Spring here—finally. We’ve had our fits and starts but everything is now beginning to look vibrant and lush. The wildflowers are blooming; the butterflies and bumblebees are flitting; the birds are eating bugs. With the onset of warm weather we have a lot of projects (too many) in the works. We have…

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Hall fixture update

 We have new light fixtures in the hall! We were looking for flush-mounts, and eventually settled on the Sunset Drive Flushmount by Feiss. The choices for reasonably priced and nice looking flush-mounted light fixtures are pretty limited but I’m happy with these. Much better than the fixtures the house came with: We only replaced the…

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Latest old stuff purchases

 On our way up to the symposium two weekends ago we stopped by an estate sale and I found just the thing missing from the “kids’ room”: a rocking horse (naturally). I love this little guy. I’ve seen him on other blogs and Etsy but I have no idea who made him. Mine has an…

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Ferns, moss, and a new LiftMaster

 On Saturday we went to the Lahr Symposium (this year’s theme: “Native Plants: Yes You Can!”) and native plant sale at the National Arboretum. It was not a bad way to spend a rainy day. The first session was a lecture about ferns by Judith Jones from Fancy Fronds Nursery in Washington. That woman loooooooves…

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