Two Holt's deck is complete! And it's everything I had hoped it would be! Let me give you a tour. Here's the view from outside. The screen is up and the door is up! Step up, open the door, and here's what you see... Just inside the screen door and just outside the French doors leading inside Two Holt is the dining section of the deck. Here's the dining table and beside it is a smaller serving table. I have my eye on a copper tabletop fountain that would look so good on the serving table when not in use. (Oops...did I say "finished" earlier?) And here's a view of the deck from inside with the French doors open and one looking inside Two Holt from the deck. Between the dining section and the sitting section is an outdoor trunk. The storage inside is nice to have on the deck. One of Phil's handmade signs is displayed over the trunk area. In this same area on the wall of the house is an iron baker's rack. I wove artificial grapevine (purchased at Michael's) to soften the iron a bit and I'd still like to add a plant or two. This section provides a transition between dining and reclining. This is our sitting area. I'm looking for an outdoor floor lamp to place behind my rocker. Lighting isn't really an issue...the three wall sconces are on dimmer switches so we can control the amount of light at any time, but I love the look of outdoor lamps. The rattan rockers, the nesting tables, and the rabbit table were brought from our home in Alabama. I know we will enjoy it here even more! The little metal plant stand beside Phil's chair belonged to his mom. I am having a piece of tempered glass cut to fit the top to turn it into a table for Phil's morning coffee. The bench belonged to the previous owner and we painted it a bright blue before moving it to the deck. Looking from the sitting area back to the dining area... Notice the little metal wall planters on the posts? Those were on sale for just $6 each at Michael's. I used an ice pick to punch 3 or 4 holes in the bottom and planted a flower in each. I love these so much that I went back and bought two more to hang on the back of my Adirondack chairs in the sitting garden! Here's one final picture to show the screened deck from the outside front. I hope we spend many years enjoying this beautiful part of Two Holt!
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Two Holt's little garden is quickly turning into a favorite spot of mine. We spent three full days working in the garden and we're liking the results. We moved a few of Miss Cora's (the original owner) plants to different spots in the garden. Two dozen daylilies were moved to our sitting garden (on the right side of the photograph on the right above) to make room for our birdbath garden. Here's Phil moving one of her Jack-in-the-Pulpit plants nearer to his garden chair. We put the garden "bones" in the birdbath garden (photograph below) by planting four Ruby Spice summersweet shrubs along the block wall behind the birdbath. These shrubs will grow to be about 6 feet tall and will fill in to make a solid hedge. Ruby Spice has mid-summer blooms which release a really nice scent. Summersweet shrubs also turn yellow in fall providing a little extra color. I haven't decided what to plant in the middle layer or the front layer of that garden yet. I will be planning it all out over the next few months. We also moved some hosta around the garden, making a stand of hostas on the outer edge of the birdbath garden and grouping another set of hosta (these are Sum and Substance, I think) between the two sets of boxwoods at Two Holt's foundation (pictured below). We filled the blue urn with Jack Frost brunnera. We added a Little Henry's Garnet Sweetspire shrub behind the newly transplanted daylilies. The spot is just begging for a couple more of these shrubs. I will be bringing those back after a short trip to Alabama next week. Little Henry's Garnet grows to a height of 3 to 4 feet and has nice red foliage in the fall...bright enough to rival any burning bush. We wanted to enlarge our astilbe stand so Phil started digging...and we think he found some of Miss Cora's old rocks buried right where we wanted our astilbe! Phil used a crowbar to wrestle these big rocks out from the ground. The results were worth his effort! We planted a few Purple Dragon lamium (spotted dead nettle) along the garden path. We added another Toad Lily, Dark Beauty, to last year's Toad Lily collection. We also added a Stokes Aster behind the little log. This is part of the log Phil unearthed while digging the covered deck footings. It is a reminder of those hard days of digging to get to solid ground. One of the things that delights me in a garden is how it evolves as you create it. We wound up with a vision of little gardens in certain areas and a stone path leading the garden visitor throughout it all. First there's the sitting garden... Adirondack chairs invite visitors to sit and enjoy the plants and birds. We have several very small spaces to fill in within this garden, but I will take my time to decide what plants to finish this area. The pathway to the screened deck passes between the backside of the sitting garden and the plantings along Two Holt's foundation. We will be adding an Endless Summer Hydrangea to this area in the next few weeks. We hope to add underpinning to the cottage...we are deciding between stacked stone or lattice. I'm just not sure the stone will show up as the plants mature and I have LOTS more places I'd like to use the stone. The birdbath garden sits beside the main path and across from the side porch. Next year, year 3, in the garden will see lots of plants added to this area. The birdbath garden ends at Two Holt's back corner, but I don't plan to stop there! Oh, no! I want to extend the little stone path and create a garden at the top of the block wall behind Two Holt. Perhaps I'll call this my "kitchen garden" because that's the view from my back kitchen windows. We have already found Solomon's Seal and wild trillium growing there. Cool and lush Highlands is the perfect gardening spot...no more fighting hot, humid, dry drought conditions and watching our garden begin to fry in July. Oh, we have our own little slice of heaven!
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Phil & SharonMarried 40 years and hoping to enjoy many more! Archives
December 2019
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