La Casa Rana

2009-08-20T13:48:00.000-07:00

Just read this article in Garden Gate magazine and wanted to save it because I love metal, especially rusted metal in the garden.

metal ornaments in the garden

If you like the look of rusted metal ornaments in your garden, you’re in luck. Left unprotected, anything made of iron or steel will rust naturally when exposed to air and water. Copper, zinc and aluminum will corrode when exposed to the elements but things made from galvanized metal or stainless steel won’t rust at all.

Want to speed the process? Carefully spray a mixture of 1 cup each of vinegar and hydrogen peroxide, plus a teaspoon of salt, onto a steel or iron surface. Hose it off after an hour or so. You can also create a faux-rust on any paintable surface. Craft stores have a number of paints and solutions that’ll give your garden ornaments a rusty look.

Sometimes rust forms where you’d rather not have it, such as on chairs or handrails. In that case, remove it and apply a good protective paint, like Rust-Oleum^®, to keep the surface clean. Light rust can be removed by applying a runny paste of lemon juice and table salt and letting it set for five to 10 minutes. Scrub with sandpaper to remove.

And although rust in the soil won’t hurt your plants, some of the chemicals mentioned here may. So protect your plants and yourself when you use them.

2009-06-28T16:53:00.000-07:00

It has been a little hot around the old homestead this week. Today it topped a hundred degrees. I got through weed whacking about half the back yard before I melted and retreated to the air conditioned house. The pool is an interesting mix of green algae and chemicals. The native plants are doing great, the more traditional landscaping is hating life. Another month of this, with the mandatory water rationing, and I'll be looking like this guy.

2009-05-18T19:09:00.000-07:00

This is God's rototiller. I've covered the back yard with 3" of wood chips, and these pocket gophers have successfully integrated the chips into the topsoil. They also manage to feed the local egrets and provide a snack for Digger and Scooby. This handout on the little tillers has provided little help in managing their population. My motto, and key to a normal blood pressure is to plant enough for them too.

2009-03-29T12:16:00.001-07:00

Spring has definitely sprung around here. The wildlife preserve is filled with lupines and these yellow flowers that were hydroseeded after the Army Corps of Engineers finished their project.

The dogs love sniffing around out there (but Scooby especially). I think she looks like a lioness as she prowls through the savannah.

The Forest Pansy was the first tree to show the signs of the new season, but the pomegranate is poised to erupt into blooms soon.

Clearly, my favorite is the Monkey Flower, which blooms earliest of all, and draws in the hummingbirds like crazy. Unfortunately, all these blooms remind me of all the things I wanted to get done this winter, but never got around to it. I think I'll nap in the swing and ponder that for a while.

2009-02-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

Well, it has been a month without a post, so an update is overdue. Rain. Lots of it. We've also been immersed in basketball practice and games. None of this should be news, so I really shouldn't be bothered by the lack of progress, but I can't help but feel a little guilty/lazy.

The native plants are loving all this rain. This Monkey Flower has exploded with blossoms, and has nearly doubled in size.

The Manzanita too is blooming. Some people think the blossoms look like Asian paper lanterns, but they remind me of Victorian dresses. That is Scooby in the background. Every time I stoop for a photo, she rushes over to see if I found something to eat.

Anyone know any secrets on weeding around the Chaparral Yucca and Blue Agave? I need welder's gloves and full face shield to get in there. Last year I tried flaming the grass out with a torch, but ALL the plants got burned. I'd love to hear ideas (other than a good mulch next year).

2009-01-19T17:52:00.000-08:00

As I was walking up the driveway tonight after putting the trash cans out, it struck me that, while a little late for the period, our home really is an atomic-ranch.

2009-01-18T17:06:00.000-08:00

Being the attention hound that she is, I'm sure Scooby was a little put off by not having a photo on the blog like Digger. Of course, she never sat still long enough for a portrait, but here she is in an action shot as I was spreading the new mulch between the Coast Sunflowers and the manzanita.

I found that the large green waste can makes a terrific transport vehicle for the wood chips that are going to the back yard. I can fit at least two wheelbarrow's worth inside and it is much easier to navigate too. I managed to get at least eight cans full moved into the back, but I broke the rake handle, so I need a trip to Lowe's. Damn.

2009-01-17T19:09:00.000-08:00

Andy is a star at basketball and spends a lot of time on the driveway court. As his skills have improved, he has added additional tools to his toolbox, most notably, the three-pointer.

Our driveway court didn't have a three-point line, so I repainted the original markings, plus added out-of bounds and the big curve.

It took a good three hours to mark everything out, tape and paint it. Three hours where Andy couldn't shoot hoop (horror!). I chose a sky blue paint so there would be enough contrast with the cement, but it wouldn't look like a school yard.

2009-01-10T18:00:00.000-08:00

It doesn't take a psychic to predict that when you take five adolescent boys, one sophomoric Dad, and twenty-five cubic yards of chipped avocado trees that countless fermenting avocados will be hurled around like water balloons. I don't think my face and scalp have ever felt this moisturized!

Thanks to Four Seasons Tree Service for the free load of wood chips and avocado scrub. We've already started mulching the yard and things are looking real nice. At four wheelbarrows per yard, there is at least one-hundred trips from the driveway to the back yard in Andrew's future.

Early this afternoon, Sherry and I went for a terrific hike around the Oak Canyon Nature Center. With the weather, a busy basketball season, and the Fire Lookout closed for the season, I was really needing to commune in the woods. Quality time with just the two of us in this pretty canyon was just what the doctor ordered.

2008-12-28T16:48:00.000-08:00

It finally dried out enough for Digger and I to get out in the yard and pull some weeds. With all this winter weather, the crab and bermuda grass has gone crazy. The Monkey Flower and Ceanothis was almost choked out by the weed grasses.

I filled the city's compost barrel plus three of these burlap squares. These are a landscapers version of bringing your own grocery bags. They run about three bucks each, and last forever. I use them for my extra green waste and save the stuff for the green barrel when I haven't already filled it. Otherwise, I can empty them in the County green pile. You can get them at Lawnmower Repair shops.

While I was doing all that work, I kept looking at the treehouse and thinking about some of the differed maintenance it needs too. If I can get a slide, I'd like to build another level, under the original level so that our Godson can get some extra use out of it.

2008-12-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

I hate the absolute lack of daylight during the winter. I leave for work in the dark, come home in the dark and spend the weekend trying to catch up on the projects I missed in the bat cave all week.

I did manage to plant 25 gallons of False Mexican Heather. I'm not much for mono-culture, but the front yard benefits from a traditional planter by the front door. I got them in the ground just in time for four days of rain and darkness.

2008-11-20T20:07:00.000-08:00

I hate daylight savings time. I've been walking the dogs in the dark when I get home and there has been no daylight left for time in the garden. The plus side is I can't see the weeds in the dark.

While we were camping in the San Diego area last weekend, I went to an awesome nursery called Barrels and Branches. They have some of the best hardscape I've seen anywhere, and they have the perfect blend of eclectic and practical. I'll be making a return visit the next time we're down south.

2008-11-04T20:49:00.000-08:00

This is a California Winter. Today at work, I walked outside and saw that in less than a week, we went from Summer to Winter without ever stopping at the Fall. The wild buckwheat has turned crimson and will soon change to my favorite color of rust. The Toyon berries have also turned to a Christmas red, and the flowers of the Desert Yucca have dropped from the giant stalks. Unfortunately, all of this reminds me that I need to get a bunch of plants in the ground, and soon.

2008-10-25T11:05:00.000-07:00

This past spring, the gophers had decimated our corn field. Of course field might be a bit of an overstatement, since it is only about 150 square feet. Even so, I managed to grow about forty corn plants. I also stuck in two watermelon plants in the middle of the area.

Less than ten of the corn plants weren't chewed off by the gophers, and we harvested just a single pot of corn for Independence Day. I really forgot about the watermelon plants until a melon caught my eye as I returned from walking the dogs this morning. Closer examination found three melons, the largest of which is currently the size of a football. We just might get to have a single serving each before the first frost.

2008-10-18T11:37:00.000-07:00

We still need to clean up after the Santa Ana Winds but we put that off long enough to participate in a clean up of the Temescal Wash. The Temescal Creek flows from the Santa Ana Mountains to Lake Elsinore, Corona Lake and then behind our neighborhood and into the Prado Basin. There was over 300 people pulling out truckloads of garbage from the watershed. Our family took out nine bags of trash plus a bicycle, a shopping cart, a tire, and a couple televisions. Kind of fitting that Temescal is the Native American word for sweat lodge.

2008-10-14T21:15:00.000-07:00

Santa Ana Winds suck. If you draw a straight line from the Cajon Pass to the ocean, the Santa Anas blow through the Pass, across the Inland Empire, down the street and into our pool before going through Santa Ana Canyon and to the beach.

For the past several days, we've had sustained 30 mph winds with 50 mph gusts. Over the years, I've fished several of the neighbors' tarps, Sunday papers and lost mail from my pool skimmer.

In 1894, environmentalist John Muir wrote his book, The Mountains of California. In Chapter 10, he tells of riding out a storm after climbing high into a tree. According to Muir, "Winds are advertisements of all they touch, however much or little we may be able to read them; telling their wanderings even by their scents alone. Mariners detect the flowery perfume of land-winds far at sea, and sea-winds carry the fragrance of dulse and tangle far inland, where it is quickly recognized, though mingled with the scents of a thousand land-flowers."

More than just an environmentalist, the poet Muir added, after the storm "the setting sun filled (the trees) with amber light, and seemed to say, while they listened, 'My peace I give unto you.”

2008-10-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

Andy and I have been camping this week out in Death Valley, so there hasn't been anything going on at the Casa Rana. Before we left, I ran an errand to Home Depot and found that they have Ceanothus Concha in 3.5 gallon containers for just $15. I usually have to pay about $10 a gallon for native plants, so at half price, I had to pick up one for the back garden.

It is great to see these in the generic nurseries like Home Depot and Lowes, but I doubt if it will last. They over-water everything and this California Mountain Lilac is very susceptible to a blight that comes with over-watering. I'll probably be able to get some even cheaper in the next couple weeks as they clear out the dying plants.

We harvested our pomegranates today. Our tree split in half under the weight of the fruit last year, so we only got a fraction of the fruit in this year's harvest. Our to-do list definitely includes planting another pomegranate tree.

2008-10-03T17:45:00.000-07:00

I finished the patio in Nana's Garden today. It looks dark now because it is still wet, but when it dries it will match the walkway I built last year. The entire garden is ten feet wide and thirty feet long. The patio is about seven by ten. One of the bricks is from the Juvenile Hall unit where Sherry and I worked and met 21 years ago.

Just peeking in on the left is a branch from a Tabebuia tree. There are roses, salvias, Lamb's Ears, and Zebrina. There is a grape vine on the trellis and of course the fountain on the wall. Sherry will pick out a couple chairs and a low table for the patio, and would like a tall bird house with morning glory climbing the pole. I think Nana would like it.

2008-10-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

I've tried to beat some of the heat by working in the early morning before going to work. Positioning the bricks is kind of a crafty endeavor. I've found the easiest way is to imagine a stream, flowing around the rocks , from the sidewalk to the gate. The other rule, is once you've picked up a brick, don't set it down till you've found a place for it. I'll wander down to the creek to find some interesting stones to place in the odd little spaces that don't really accommodate a brick. Once Sherry gives everything the green light, I'll sweep in some topper mix and finish it off.

2008-10-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago, this little gopher snake wandered out of the garden to see what I was up to. He was stretched out in the newly excavated pit until I came back with the camera and by then he had crawled up inside this lamp I left as an ornament in the garden.

I sure picked a nice hot week to work on the patio. It was 104 with 20% humidity today while I was shoveling 2000 pounds of gravel and 1000 pounds of sand. My folks came by while I was getting another load of sand, and they took me out for a big ol' plate of baby back ribs and gave us a pretty azalea for the garden.

Here's what a ton of three-quarter inch gravel looks like leveled and tamped. Between the gopher snake and this gravel, I'm hoping the gophers will find another place to dig.

Once the ribs were digested, I spread a thousand pounds of sand across the gravel, leveled everything and tamped it into place. Sherry helped me position the slabs of quartzite we picked up this morning at the Rockery. The next phase will be to place the used brick into place and spread topping mix into the cracks.

2008-09-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

During our walk this morning, Digger and I had a terrific lightning show over the Santa Ana mountains. The weatherman says we're going to stay dry, but it is pouring down rain over in Black Star Canyon. Hopefully this cloud cover will keep things cool while I'm hauling gravel to the patio this week.

2008-09-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

Looks like I'm not the only one in my neighborhood that has started some Guerrilla Gardening. While walking Digger this morning, I noticed one neighbor a couple blocks away has added these five poplar trees and an irrigation system to the Army Corps of Engineer's project.

The rise on the left of this photo is not a natural hillside, but a new dike built to protect our homes from the newly elevated Prado Dam. Before this year's construction, the gentle slope from the property line on the right continued down about 400 yards to the Temescal Creek. In the last year, they've built this long dike around our neighborhood and installed an above ground irrigation system. They will be hydro-seeding with native plants like buckwheat and white sage, and in the spring the irrigation will be removed. During the construction we saw a dramatic reduction in wildlife, but the coyotes, raccoons, opossums and other critters have started to return.

This morning I dug out the future patio in Nana's Garden. I need to fill it with some three-quarter gravel. Lowe's sells a 1000 pound bag for about $30 which should put about a two-inch base. A couple of those should frustrate the gophers and keep them from undermining the patio. It will get another half ton of builder's sand which should bring it to grade for adding the bricks and granite slabs for the patio.

2008-09-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

I was doing some traveling this week so my gardening activities were limited to recon of anything I stumbled upon in a rainy Tampa and Washington, DC. I also spent some time poking around the hard drive of my old laptop computer and found some images of note.

La Casa Rana has a few statues of frogs and toads around the garden. This chubby boy is on our front porch. Last year, this Arroyo Toad buddied up to this statue for a couple days. You have to wonder what was going through the little guy's mind as his sentinel just sat there the whole time.

I also found a couple images taken a little over four years ago. I stitched them into one photo that looks back at the house from our property line. It surprised me just how much progress has occurred since then. Still a lot more work to do. I think I'll push away from this computer and go change into my jeans and find my hat and gloves.

2008-09-20T11:58:00.000-07:00

I sprained my ankle so I haven't done any work on the patio this week. While I nurse my wounds, I thought I'd give some of the back story on the signs and trinkets on the shed.

The license plates were inspired by a wonderful barbecue spot along the banks of the Colorado River in Austin. I started collecting the plates and when it wasn't going fast enough, I found a vendor on eBay who sells them in big lots. I've been debating about getting some smaller motorcycle plates to edge the window.

The burned sign above the hose bib is a Wilderness Boundary sign I found while chasing a fugitive through the Trabuco District of the Cleveland National Forest. Above the burned sign is Pacifico, my favorite bottled beer. Above that is an old sign I found in the creek bed on the old Dezi Arnaz ranch. The rusty saw blade is a discard from a Conservation Camp. The Coors sign we bought from the brewery of my favorite draught beer. My friend Dave gave me the RxR sign. I picked up the No Tresspassing sign off the shoulder of the Ortega Highway. I love it because the smaller lettering says, "No Hand Gliding or Sky Diving Landing." Damn those pesty HAND gliders!

I like the red caboose lamp in part because of the railroad lore (the other part, my Mom reminds me, is that my family in Kansas were railroad folk). In the pioneer days before radios and cell phones, train crewmen would take a lamp with them when they went to town for the night. They would hang their lamps outside the home of their "hosts" so the other trainmen would know where to find them. The neighborhoods where the trainmen visited, became known as the red light district.

Finally, the sign on the gate that guards the shed, "Beware of Attack Frog" causes a lot of trepidation with our younger visitors. These kids usually crouch low by the fence and stare nervously on the other side. Isn't that exactly the wrong thing to do if there is an attack frog about?

2008-09-17T21:36:00.001-07:00

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.