Our Beverley Drive “lady” – EA (REVISED ) Wed – 4/19 – 5:31 pm

BEVERLEY DRIVE

BEFORE VIDEO

Our lovely client on Beverley Drive, all on her own, went and picked out six new bushes for us to plant. Two white Butterfly Bushes, 3 Purple “Pugster” Butterfly Bushes, and one new Azalea. Together we established locations and we dug all the holes approximately 16” deep. Tomorrow we are at another location so we will return on Wednesday to complete all in progress work.

We will plant all the new bushes on Wednesday.  Today we completed most of her Spring Clean Up Project. Putting her property back into some shape from the winter season. Lots of weeds, border edging were pretty much non-existent and most plants needed to be cut back some. We began tidying the edgings. We are hopeful for some rain so that we can complete a deeper cut/edge to make everything look really fresh. We removed all the porch items from under the Portico and cleaned every thing up. Pansies took a hit but are monsters so today we watered an cleaned around them. On Wed we will cut back all their dead growth and further shape them. They give a lot to the cause, because we planted them in a October and still they are producing tons of blooms.

We need to tend the Hydrangea on Wed and cut back any dead stalks and apply our Acidifier fertilizer and finish tidying up that side flower bed. All the mulch stayed pretty well in the beds, but needs to be redistributed giving a more uniform look. And the Holly Tree that PFX planted when our lady moved in needed water badly. We have cleaned out all the dead and yellowing leaves. It is looking much better. It so needed water.  

Everything today was bone dry as over the weekend the rain we were supposed to receive just didn’t happen. So we watered each plant individually, for a good length of time. And we transplanted a White Anemone, one very small Gardenia and one purple Salvia.  We had to make these relocations as the six (6) new bushes required adequate space to balance out the appearance of the bed.

We will report back upon COB Wed, once everything is completed. Please do check back to view our Final Video.

Today we completed six (6)hours for this project from 9 am to 3 pm.

IN PROGRESS VIDEO

“Contessa” says….. it all very good!

(REVISED) Wed – 4/19 – 5:31pm 

Back today to complete our Beverley client. Four (4)  hours today.  All six bushes planted. All Pansies thinned out and deadheaded then gathered into clusters and outer lanky stems trimmed away. Frankly they now look like brand new plants. Deep perimeter “bed edging” completed. Redistribute mulch throughout the entire bed. Transplanted the White Anemone as it was being crowded by returning Daffodils. Fertilized the Hydrangea with Nutone Acidifier. Hosed down the front porch and used the leaf blower to tidy the entire property including all the sidewalks.

We will await instructions on how she wants to address the bed along the side of the house. And we need to purchase plants for her wire basket that sits on the top of her Etegere. Today she was visiting Ft Myers and may bring back Begonias that we usually plant in three or four planters for  the Etegere shelves. We think everything is looking very nice.

We have some good video to post, but still technical issues persist in uploading to the WordPress site.  We attempted to contact WordPress but all technicians are unavailable so once the issue is resolved we will post. Excuse!

We seem to be able to provide one photo of the Hydrangea and Pansy bed. Please check back on any updates and our additional work plus our Video.

Garden Bed Edging

BEFORE VIDEO

In our world of gardening there are a couple ways to “edge” a bed. So what does edging do to enhance your garden beds. It provides a finished appearance, and it helps to keep your soil and mulch in the beds, and further, it helps keep weeds from crawling into your beds.

Many of our current residents use bricks or shaped brick edgers.  My clients now all use my preferred method. A tool called an “edger” allows you to slice into the earth, then lift and toss the dirt into your bed. Then you use the edger tool to break up this soil and spread around the bed. What this does is build up the level of your beds. It’s a great curb appeal enhancement. Most often we convert our clients over to this method. We refer to them as “raised beds.”

Today we used what our client preferred. We created a four inch deep trench to fit the cement edgers into. They have the appearance of Soda cans tightly aligned. The goal being to embed them flush with the sidewalk so they look tidy and most importantly very straight and not buried too deep. This prevents weeds from growing between the sidewalk and the edger.

This project completed at 4.5 hours. We started it yesterday and finished right after the Noon hour. Very dirty and hard work…. but quite satisfying. And we also completed attaching her new retractable 100 ft fiber type hose and embedded into a trench so that neighbors could not see it. As every building shares the end of the building water faucet we added a dual outlet, Brass Faucet Adapter so her neighbor can hook up easily also. It’s a win-win. And previous to this fix, our client had to drag a hose over 100 ft to her yard.  So difficult she rarely used the water source she is entitled too.  Now she’s set-up!

$10.99 at Home Depot

FINAL VIDEO 

”Contessa ” says…it’s a very good thing!

Gardening – Rental Property Prep (REVISED) SUNDAY – 4/30 – 9:35 am

Scope of Project

We received a call from a local Bethesda resident to clear the back raised bed of existing weeds and plantings. Upon arrival we discovered a nicely constructed raised bed but very shallow and it needed a soil abatement. All existing plants and weeds were cleared and the plant material was set aside to use in the bed located under the tree that’s bordering the property. We added four (4) bags of soil to build the bed under the tree and planted the leftover existing Hosta.

We then proceeded to a abate the soil quantity in the raised bed under the back windows. We discovered a PCV pipe buried on the left side of this bed so an adjustment in bush placement was needed. Additionally this bed was full of tree roots so a deep excavation 18” down had to occur. Upon the completion of five (5) 18” sized holes we planted up the five (5), three (3) gallon Boxwood bushes that we secured from a local nursery. Added three bags of top soil and four bags of organic garden soil to the arrangement of bushes. Leveled the bed and finished off with two (3) cu ft bags of hardwood bark shredded mulch. A terrific final look and one that is clean looking and will be easy for the new tenant to maintain. 

To complete and finish up this project, we used reserved mulch to fill the side bed near the breezeway fence and in the newly created Hosta bed to finish up this 10 hour job.

Front of Property

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Back of the Property

As of last night,  the Homeowner has requested we price out additional Hosta bushes for both the bed under the tree and the side bed by the fence. We will do so this week and most likely add on to the project, since he will not be listing it for two more weeks. And so delightfully….work will continue.

“Contessa” says….. it’s all good!

(REVISED) – Sunday – 4/30 – 9:30 am 

Mr Fox ( pun intended….Ha!) insisted we show for his Open House yesterday. We arrived early and completed a last minute tidy before his prospective tenants arrived. It’s all part of doing great business. He lives in Bethesda but has had this rental property since 1986. He’s retired and the place has become his “hobby” as evidenced by his conducting his choice to rent it on his own. He placed these Fox biz card holders on his kitchen counter as he decided to promote my business during the 1 to 5 pm showing. A nice turn out of folks came through, with our break in rain, and today three (3) are returning for a second viewing. Sounds promising! The entire unit was gutted in December and construction was completed on April 1st. It is a three bedroom unit and just gorgeous inside, complete with a third bedroom converted into an office with built in book shelving and a desk. Very handsome indeed. I’m certain he will land a great tenant. He’s retired foreign service so he himself has leads from career acquaintances.

“Contessa’s” provided some outside help in bringing the property ready to show. We ended up doing extra and it was a pleasure to work for a homeowner who definitely wants his investment to rent successfully. He plans now to retain us quarterly to provide upkeep. It’s a win for us and for him.

Thank you Mr Fox! 🦊

Lenten Study – Holy Saturday

BEING RESURRECTED

Most of us today are getting busy preparing for Easter celebrations. We go about our daily rituals of washing, cleaning, feeding, dressing, and holding the bodies of those in our care in our own life. This builds our daily life and we create community in our homes. We pause to prayer this  Holy Saturday and we claim our own faith in the resurrection of Christ’s body today. His resurrection is not just todays event after his death on the cross, but it is a reality of our everyday life. Our own care for our body is a calling for unity….intimacy… and to our own integrity.

Read: Colossians 2:11-14

Prayer

Oh my God, you are my everlasting strength and you provide wisdom to me. Please hear my call for help as I keep a watch along with Christ’s disciples at his tomb. Inspire me to find a place of burial for my Lord, just as you did for Joseph of Arimathea. I now “wait in anticipation” for the Easter light to deliver me from the darkness of my own sin.

AMEN

Lenten Study – Palm Sunday

ERADICATE BLAME

We spend a lot of time wondering who can accept the blame for our own, or other people’s misfortunes. But Jesus didn’t allow us to solve our own problems or the mistakes of others. Instead Jesus challenges us to discern in our darkest times, to look for the “Light of God.” During these times, we are most likely to see that God will reveal His work in us. It is very likely, that if we can move beyond blaming, to proclaiming the works of God, we will experience a radically “new life.” All of humanity has its challenges and its problems, but do we chose to live them as occasions to blame others, or as opportunities to witness God at work in our lives.

Read: John 9:1-5

Prayer

My God, the big and little misfortunes in life, and those of others, provide habits for blaming. We humbly ask for your refuge and your help, to strip these times away from us and our using of blame to cope. Challenge us to move beyond the “blame game” and to understand that these difficult times are beyond our control. Teach us to realize and to clearly see these events, as fruitful opportunities for us to grow in Faith and Love.

God is with you…. to do hard work in your life. Can you finally see this in your own life?

A M E N 

A Gardening Consultation/Planters – A Tutorial and Planting 101

One of our prospective clients went shopping today for  planter’s to place in front of her house, near her two white portico columns. Not too large, but a very good size. 14” x14”x 14”. For a first year pick, we think they are a good start; a fair price, sturdy, adequately equipped with built in drainage and made of a resin material which is not too heavy for moving them around. Ceramic planters these days are heavy, costly and they often crack near the base, if our winter is really cold. Plus, as a new gardener she wants to go at it carefully, so as to make sure her skill as a gardener and her commitment to execute a nice little garden, will stick. We think it will. She has owned her home fifteen years and this is her first attempt to learn, create and plant.

We visited to provide our 30-minute FREE gardening consultation. She has actually been reading our blog and  finally decided to give us a call for her rightful 30-minute gardening consultation. While we were together today, we covered pruning bushes, weed removal from the patio, bed cleanup and dead leaf removal, deep edging of her flower beds and size requirements for planted items, soil and mulch requirements and removing invasive repetitive weeds from her beds. When we left she had a couple of our tools to aid her with weed removal and the proper edging of her beds. She seemed to appreciate the concept and our tutorial.

She sent us a photo of the planter above, and checked in to get our “recipe” for extensive weed removal from her fairly small patio…. which she hopes to tackle this week prior to her company arriving for Easter.

The recipe follows:

1 gallon of white vinegar

1 Cup table Salt

2 Tbsp of Dawn Detergent

Pour all in a bucket, full strength, and using your kitchen broom, swish all over the patio. Do this on a full Sunny hot day. Make sure the day following will also be hot and Sunny. The hot sun combined with this homemade weed removal concoction should dry the weeds out… and you can either sweep them away, or power wash them away with your hose and a sprinkler, with the nozzle setting on high. Our homeowner is going to “give it a go.”

We are wishing her well ….and will follow up by going by to see how things are coming along one day this week. As of this posting time, she has secured recommended products and put in two hours labor pulling weeds and edging her beds with tools we left behind for her to take use of.

Such fun…. and we are pretty sure she is feeling like she accomplished some “gardening beginnings” today.

“Contessa” says……it’s a very good thing!

P. S. With her permission we may take photos of her accomplishment and revise this post later. So check back later in the week. And in May once planting can begin we will assist her with choosing plants and planting them. This activity will be a fee-based service by us, and she understands this.

Spring Beauty

Today on my 30-minute walk I could have had the opportunity to take several pictures of flowers and the essence of spring color and blooms. But I happened upon this rather twisted and decayed looking tree. The contrast in the color of the branches and the blooms was very eye catching. I saw it last year about this time as well. Its not a tree that is beautiful at all. I’m attracted to it because of the brilliant color of its buds. I don’t even know what it’s called. But the contrast between the “twisted and the decayed” producing these absolutely vibrant colored flower buds just caught me. It was amazingly beautiful in the sunlight.

I’m a gardener and I notice the unusual and the quirky growth of almost everything. I have an intense desire to want all living plants to grow to their potential. I’m also quite good at accessing the condition of plant life.

One thing I know is that plants can be altered in order to help them glow better. I know of no plant that cannot be cut or trimmed to a point where it can begin a new growth cycle. I don’t know the folks who own this tree and I seriously doubt that it’s ever been trimmed, but it’s unusual and twisted growth suggests to me, that it needs a serious trimming. I would love to see it reach its true potential and beauty.

Our lives are like this. We grow, we branch out, we bloom, we have our twisted and decayed times. But if trimmed back and encouraged to grow “new” we can become beautiful and we can produce gorgeous blossoms. We just need to be willing to be trimmed, cut back and then regrow ourselves until we produce the new and the beautiful. New life can grow in all of us……and in all living things.

“Contessa” says…. It’s a very good thing!

Contessa’s “Spring” Seasonal Bed Preparation

We offer four (4) seasons gardening appointments and all our regular ongoing clients receive these gardening visits in the spring, summer, fall and winter. 

Today,  we will cover the early spring garden bed preparation.

Early SPRING – March/April

March and April Spring includes tidying up after the winter season. Most garden beds are full of debris from falling branches and limbs, crinkled up, leftover fall leaves and….new spring “weeds.” The wind in Virginia in March begins to pick up tiny seedlings from the weeds and begins carrying them everywhere. It doesn’t take much and they blow around and begin populating and spreading pretty rapidly, and very early in the season. The best time to pull them is following a good rain. Then you can pull the weed and it’s root. Make sure to place them in a paper refuse bag for disposal. Tossing them aside will encourage them to root elsewhere, and then the cycle continues. Our next task is to remove dead growth from under and around bushes and plantings. Cleaning/clearing them out from your plants sends a signal to your bushes and plantings that they can now begin new spring growth. Next we deep edge all the garden beds, creating a deep trench to provide a tidy look and to allow rain water to drain without causing stagnation. If Pansies planted in the fall need deadheading of spent blossoms we provide this during our upkeep. We take care of this along with the trimming of all rose bushes and any other winter bloomers such as Lenten Rose and Primroses. We also cut down the Mums left from fall. As soon as you do this you will see that they begin shooting up little green life, and the fall cycle of life begins to repeat itself. Hydrangeas at this point are just beginning to bud. If any branches are absent green buds and look lifeless, you can now trim these stalks down to the ground. They don’t grow back until the next season, but cutting them in the spring will assure new growth as soon as temps start to break the next year. Spring is a perfect time to remove any leaf debris from near the roots of all bushes such as Rose bushes, Azaleas and Camellias. Same is true for Nandina, Forsythia and Evergreens. Tidying in and under all bushes in the spring allows rain water to be able to access their roots bringing new growth to each plant from the center near the ground. Use a hand 3-claw fork to till and turn the soil in your garden beds. As you are doing this, you can dig deep and in and under any weeds. It works so well. And if you mulched your beds in the previous fall, before the winter arrived, you can spread the mulch around more evenly, and this gives your spring beds such a fresh look. Mulch has a tendency to mat itself down during the winter, and tilling the beds actually releases it and allows fresh nutrients and air to give new life to the earth under and around your plants. It’s kind of like adding spices to a recipe. Thoroughly mixed in, it gives a new growth spurt to everything.  In the end, it looks fresh, tidy and fantastic. It’s an accomplished feeling, to have your beds really ready for the first week in May. In Virginia we are Zone 9, so the “new plantings” protocol date is Mother’s Day.  All the prep we just covered makes your garden so ready to plant your spring flowers…….!

“Contessa” says….. it a very good thing, and you will be thrilled you are…ready!

Lenten Study – Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent – Day 32

TRUE LISTENING

What keeps us from really hearing God when he speaks to us? Well…so much inner and outer NOISE.

Often we become so overloaded with noise we enter a mode of tuning out and turning off. It’s like becoming deaf to protect our inside self. So we can miss God’s attempts to know when He is calling us. We’ve lost our direction. Do we get out of wack?  It can get absolutely absurd sometimes. The Latin word for absurd is surdus, which means “deaf.” Our spiritual life needs us to pay attention and to listen for God. You may need to discipline yourself to learn to listen. Cultivate “obedience” to listen for Him. He speaks to us all the time…. but we often don’t “hear” him. We are not listening. Coincidentally, the word obedient comes from the Latin word audire which means “to listen.”

Read: 1 Kings 19:11-14

Prayer

My dear Lord God, my soul feels a yearning for your Grace. You are beside me all the time, but I suddenly feel lost and abandoned. I am searching for you in the wrong places. Father,  please help me to hear your voice again….in the deep quiet of my soul.

Will you answer me?  I am here  I am waiting.

• AMEN •

Lenten Study – Sabbath Sunday – Day 5

The Gift of Friendship

Do you really know yourself? Do you know your weak spot, do you know what you want to be. Do you know what your goals are? What motivates and drives you?  Are these answers something you think about, or are they in your mind….but you reserve them as the hidden parts of “you.”

Its not a bad thing to have our own hidden consciousness.  Our friends and especially those who love us, can see our “hidden zone” better than we can sometimes. It’s quite normal to be seen and understood by others, and it’s often different than the way we see ourselves. Do you have a hidden place in your heart that you yourself cannot see?
Having parts of ourselves that are known only to us, is a very good thing. Treasure your “twilight zone.”

The Value of Friendship

Ecclesiastes 4:9-12

Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help. Again if two lie together, they keep warm, but how can one keep warm alone? And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one. A threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Prayer

Father God take my poor offering of friendship and keep me mindful every day during Lent, to walk along your side to the miracle of Easter and your resurrection. Help me to accept my weaknesses and my flaws that You and others can see in me. My heartfelt plea now, is that you will lift me up when I fall, and help me to reach for your loving hand and accept your forgiveness. Help me with my sins and my doubts, so that they don’t rob me of joy in my life. Help me to silently salute each person I meet today, and let me greet them with your loving kindness. And as you encourage me….help me to cheer on my “others.”

AMEN