Finished replacing the boxwood shrubbery and adding a cactus planter in their place. The cactus planter was a great idea. We went to City of Austin for free glass mulch, originally we wanted it because it's pretty and provides great drainage, but we discovered it actually has 3 benefits. It looks cool, drains well, but it also holds in heat which is great for the cactus and succulents!
Our backyard is coming along nicely as well, we like to just sort of let it get wild and green.
Obviously this Summer will put an end to the lush green, and typical Texas will bring on the dusty grey brown of drought. But hey, take the good with the bad, right? I always wanted to grow cactus and Texas is perfect for it. Some people like cactus because they like that they're thorny and make great deterrents. (?!?) I like them because they're gorgeous, drought tolerant, I can't accidentally kill them, they come in a huge variety, and they're very modern looking. Jim grew up in El P. Texas and has no use for cactus.
Conversely I grew up in the land of swimming pools and have no use for them having spent many summers battling algae, adding shock treatments and chlorine tablets.. While Jim is over the moon to have a pool.
To each his own. I can mess around with my cactus while Jim plays fish in the pool. The image of the little tiny cactus in sunlight, I grew that from a seed! two years later it's about the size of a pinkie finger. There is a weirdo gift shop on Rt 66 outside of Santa Fe, it's like the Stuckys of the Southwest, they sell things like cactus candy, scorpion suckers and packets of cactus seed. You too can have the chance to possibly-maybe-perhaps get a single Saguaro seed! Personally I prefer totem pole cactus. They're spiffy and spineless!
Anyways, this time of year is great because every home improvement center gets a massive shipment of succulents and cactus, Jim gets nervous and I get pie eyed. There are never enough planters for cacti, and even though we made this neat planter out front, Jim knows we're out of planter space again.
This coming weekend is the annual cactus and succulent show and sale at Zilker park!
We have a friend who exerts a great deal of control over his yard. It's very rigid and very "done", we actually started dropping pink flamingos and bowling balls in our backyard just to freak him out when he comes over for game night. And it really does freak him out, he doesn't seem to know what to make of it. Though simply not putting our lemon tree in an appropriate container seems to be a no no. He'd be a total drag if he weren't so unintentionally funny.
He lives in an HOA. As if that explains it.
We want to be able to put a few bottle trees in the backyard if we want, without it being anyone's business. Not that we have bottle trees, but it's nice to know it's an option.
Our next door neighbor thinks we're a riot. She loves the new green paint, she loves the cactus planter. I brought home some exterior lettering for sale on Etsy and Pat wanted to know when we were mounting them to the house. I think she wants us to completely South Austin-ize the house!
We painted our backyard fence black, it makes the grass look greener and the pool look bluer, also the passion and boganvilla vines looks even more lush. We have a pagoda thing in the backyard, I want to have it painted coral red when the rest of the house gets painted green.
