La Casa Rana

I've been wanting to do this blog for a long time, so we've got some catching up to do. Lets start with this overview of the southwest corner of the back yard, as seen from the treehouse. When we bought the house, the only living thing on the property was a large Ash tree where we built a treehouse. Since that time, I've planted over a dozen more trees, and lots of plants. Our goal is an eclectic, country-shabby landscape. This photo shows approximately one-third of our back yard. The rest has been planted with several Birch trees, three Coast Live Oaks, a Toyon, five citrus trees, and more gardening to come.

We designed our pool to be energy efficient with a dual-speed pump, and no heating. We overcame the lack of heat by using a gray plaster and keeping the depth to just five-foot in the center and four at the ends. This makes for an efficient use of the Southern California heat, and keeps our pool in the high seventies for most of the summer.

Being a tight-wad, many of the plants were purchased in the dying-returns section of the local Lowe's and Home Depot. I paid just a dollar for this Butterfly Bush, which now dominates the area between the barbecue and Nana's Garden.

This Western Redbud was just a few dollars more, and I almost expected it to die. I planted it behind some hedge plants thinking it would survive long enough for me to transplant it somewhere else. I forgot about it, and a year later it was peeking up behind the hedge. A couple weeks ago I dug out some of the hedge so I could feature the Redbud and maybe create a water feature in front of it. It is a good spot for that because there is already electricity for the pool pump nearby.

The vegetable garden was one of our first efforts in the yard, and while it was completely neglected last year, this year it only got a little more attention. I hope to spend some more time on it this next season, and you can see where I've started building a low table to keep seedlings out of the reach of the local rabbits.

The shed was built by the previous owner, however I have moved the doors from the end to the side, and painted over the horrible purple color it was originally with a sage green. The metal signs and trinkets are all castoffs that I've picked up along my way, and should be the subject of additional posts. The roof fascia is lined with license plates.

When Sherry's Nana passed away, she left us a little something and we decided to build a rose garden on the west side of the house in her memory. Nana's Garden has a variety of roses, Lambs Ears, Salvias, and a wall fountain. I built this pathway out of used brick in the Clinker Style with pieces of tumbled granite arranged so the bricks flow like water around them.

I've almost replaced the side door and window with a slider (still need to work on the stucco), and now I'm working on continuing the Clinker path into a eight-by-ten patio. Sherry says she is looking forward to having tea on the patio in Nana's Garden.

Because of the size, we're looking for additional details to make the patio interesting. Sherry found these tiles she liked, so this week I built some tiny forms, placed the tiles upside down inside, and back-filled them with mortar. The result is blocks that are the same thickness as the bricks, which is important for a good bond.

Finally, I was inspired by what I read on the pages of Guerrilla Gardening. These urban warriors do clandestine landscaping of public spaces. They adopt cast off pieces of land at freeway off ramps and other public rights of way, and by doing so, make their world a better place. Since our back neighbor is the Army Corps of Engineers, I thought this just might work: I bought a 15 gallon Sycamore tree in the dying-returns section for eighteen bucks. I planted it in the wild area behind our house and put a pole next to it just to make sure whoever wondered would know that tree was loved. Hopefully, in a few years, it will cast some shade into our yard, and provide some much needed nesting habitat.

So there you have it. The current state of la Casa Rana.