Thanks!
And BOWWOW to you, TWM.
I was lookiing for something else in my CB2 thread from a few years back, and found this post
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12500&p=436787&#p434710
and pic
showing back in July 2011 when i transplanted the trees that are now some medium sized shade trees, almost 4 years later. In that pic, between where Hachi is standing in the shade, and the cart in the background out in the yard, is where Hachi and the others would be buried only a year and 3/4 later.
That spot is now covered in lantana. I would go take a pic of the area as it is right now but it's too dark out there.
The tree in the left of the pic was cut down into the ground by the landlord's crew after I'd moved back in, for no reason, along with all the lantana that had been doing pretty good there, and now it is just finally getting taller than it was in that pic almost 4 years ago (while the other two are taller than the house and make quite a bit of shade back there...thye'd make a lot more if I had been able to water them during the almost-year while the house was rebuilt).
EDIT: This pic is how it looks now from about the same angle. It's hard to get exactly teh same one; the white you see in the pic above is the no longer extant chimney; i forgot it was even there before when I was trying to get htis pic of it now, and I think that screwed up my positioning. Now the whole back wall is at the same line the back of the chimney used to be (so the back room is a little bigger, and the back door position is farther out)
So that tiny little tree you see to he right of the cart in the pic above, is the large tree to the left of the little white waterbowl in the pic below. The taller tree at the left of the pic above, by the corner of the bricks, is just to the left of the red post in the pic below, hard to see cuz of all the lantana over the grave (whcih was all just dirt in the pic above).
If you draw a line between that tree in the left of first pic, to the center of the gate (middle double-post) on the fence past that cart, that's the line where the lantana is rooted, along a piece of red wire "mesh" that provides support for it to grow on (itself tied to a couple of green metal fenceposts hammered into the ground).
The white table's middle in the now pic is about where Hachi and Nana were standing in the first pic. Just past them is where the rosebush used to be, which was destroyed when they tore that whole back room down and rebuilt it. You can see some of it's branches sticking out toward the tiny new little tree. Behind that is the older mulberry tree that I had at taht time never trimmed at all, cuz the dogs liked the really low branches for shade in the afternoon and morning (especially Loki). It got trimmed severely for me by the cleanup crew, and now I don't think it even HAS any branches down near the level where the tree ends in teh first pic. You can see it a little bit in the now pic, but it's hard cuz it blends in with the big mulberry that is closer (they are nearly the same size now...probably partly cuz the newer one has had the grave of Bonnie to feed on since a few months after it was planted, and the grave of the rest of the dogs since April 2013, about a year and a half later. The older one just has the regular soil and whatnot.)
Anyway, this little area is one of my "contemplation spots". I had started making it such before I lost Hachi, Nana, Loki, and Fred, and it was close to waht it is now back then, other than that east mulberry being smaller than the middle one, and now it's MUCH bigger since it didn't get chopped into the ground for no reason along with all the lantana (no, I'm not bitter. :/ )
It is not quite the plant density that I used to ahve on the front yard in front of the porch in front of my bedroom (where the fire was, now the "music/computer room"), which used to be my favorite spot, cuz I could pretty much not see any of the outside world from there, and could pretend I was by myself in a little forest...but this one almost gets me there. Almost. I just have to try hard to not remember why it's not as good as it could be (imagine how big that center mulberry would be today; I'd have shade over the entire back porch area by now, if A) it hadn't been chopped down and had to regrow from nothing, and B) I hadn't been unable to water anything for almost a year).
I've added more tiny little trees and lantana around the yard now, that had been nursing along in the littel planter boxes over the winter. Some of them I'm not sure which will survive better because of the heat coming, so I planted both the eucalyptus type and the mulberry together, so close they will grow together as they grow up, if they both survive. Then the lantana is planted next to the pair, so they can all mutually shade each other and the ground aroudn them as they grow (eventually the lantana will provide ground cover to keep water frrom being baked out of the ground aroudn the roots of the whole group, while the tree(s) grow(s) taller and shade the whole area eventually.
The first was planted to the west of teh back gate, at it's post but a few feet into the yard. The next was in line between the gate and the back door, but only about 15 feet from the back gate, I think. Maybe 20. I didn't do one on the east gatepost because there is a big mulberry already pretty close to there. I might still put one there since I have several seedlings in the planter still.
I replaced the two that didn't make it over on the north east line of trees in the backyard, which I've replanted two or three times now. These are doing a lot better so far than the other ones before them, so maybe the ground has finally recovered enough to support them. (this area has never been able to grow anything at all the whole time I've lived here, so this whole thing is a first anyway).
Then I added one in the front yard between the palm tree and the pine tree, so there will eventually be something to shade taht area of the yard, and that corner of the house and carport.
I also put more of these groups out at the edge of the front yard, though I don't expect the mulberry trees will survive out there, the lantana and the eucalyptus should. Even if they don't grow into trees, they can become bushes to make a "wall" around the front yard that might keep people from traipsing thru the front yard and leaving trash behind them, as they presently do.
It will be some long time before that wall could be complete, because I only have them every few feet or so now, at best, and utnil I have more lantana/etc seedlings that are large enough to survive transplanting there, or more sprout on their own near the ones that are already there, as they finally get large enough to flower and seed (which itself will probably not happen until late this year, at best).
As expensive as it is to water all this stuff while it grows (less so once it's actually thoroughly started), $100-$150/month, I will probably have to cut back the watering during the summer, slowing all the growth even further. (because I'll need that money to pay for power to run the window AC for the dogs and me in the bedroom).
Right now I'm concentrating most of my watering on the trees by the back porch and east house wall, and the biggest one by my bedroom, which is in the southwest backyard. Then on the lantana along the front of the house and the eucalyptus-like trees in front of my old room where the fire happened, where the fir tree was cut down along with all of those well-grown trees that are still not much taller than me after a year of growing back.
I've been trimming the lantana in front (and the eucalyptus around the base of the pine tree, and the olive tree's base branches) so that they are chest-height, and cylindrical around those two trees. Now that summer is approaching fast, I am no longer trimming the tops of the lantana, just tucking the branches back into themselves along the front to make them "flat" and letting the tops grow up as high as I can get them to shade teh whole front porch and front of the house.
Presently none of them are even shoulder height, and none of the lantana along the east porch and house front are even half as tall as the ones on the west side, presumably because they get less sun than the west ones (same watering). Am hoping they all grow quickly now that weather is always warmer (80F-100F daytime, 70F-85F nighttime), so they shade the front of the house a lot and keep it cooler.
Am pondering what to do to shade the carport without making it look all trashy, but really all I have that I can use is some rolled cloth, if I can cut it into shades I can attach to the end of the carport roof, with 2x4s rolled inot the bottom end of the cloth to keep them from blowing around and tangling in breezes, and keep them shading better. If the carport concrete near the house is not allowed to heat up from morning sun, it'll keep that end of the house from getting as hot (because it is the worst part of the house, and the biggest reason why I cant' use the master bedroom that is right there at that corner...the room I do use at the opposite corner of hte house is presently the coolest one in summer because fo the shade of the mulberry tree behind it).
I have also been trying to get some lantana and stuff to grow along the unused west side of the house, but so far all that grows is weeds and stuff--the rest of it keeps dying off. I thought at first the dogs were trampling it so I blocked it off, but it didnt change anything. I gave up over the winter, and am going to start trying again now with the few I have left in the planters. If I can grow stuff on that side of the house, it'll shade that too. Otherwise the only shade I can really make is to build an awning there, which will have to be strong enough to hold up dumb cats that try to run across it (my previous attempts at awnings prior to the housefire tended to fail because of that).
The dogs are not liking the warmer weather much. Today I shaved down their chests, necks, and bellies again (and Tiny's butt cuz she has a leaky bladder and it keeps skin problems down and is a lot easier ot wash off every day). Neither much liked the shaving process, but they both are happier now that it's done, and cooler.
Are both sprawled out on the floor nearby right now, dozing after a long day of running around the yard watching me do stuff. Shame it's now their dinnertime and as soon as I stop typing they're gonna wake up....
