Category Archives: Treasure Coast Living

Christmas Palm – Veitchia merrillii

The Christmas Palm on Christmas Day.  This particular Palm I learned as the Adonidia. I think Christmas is a much better name; especially with the red mass of berries resembling ornaments during the holiday season.  These are also called Manila Palms as they are from the Philippines. Not an exceptionally cold tolerant plant they will grow in South Florida in coastal areas south of the magical State Highway 60 line. Many of these palms were lost during the unusually cold winter of 2010.

Christmas Palms can be used as single or multi trunk trees and grow to about 20 feet tall, this makes them excellent for residential use near buildings in the one to two story range. These are not a self cleaning Palm so fronds past their prime must be trimmed. They also add a tropical flair to pools and near spas, I have planted a multi trunk near my lanai to provide shade in the summer. And I am just waiting for some Christmas berries.href=”https://theshrubqueen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/cam00183.jpg”>Image

The Before photo

A reminder of what we are starting with..

theshrubqueen's avatarThe Shrub Queen

The Before photo

House as we bought it. This is the beginning of my Landscape Renovation story. This photo is what we bought, I look at it and wonder “what were we thinking?” Then, I know, in my heart I can fix this and make it work. I have redone many horrendous yards, this one, mine, may take the cake. Thus far.

What I do not recall is, who the SUV belongs to. Maybe a rental? Maybe the realtor, maybe it will come back to me or I will ask Larry.

So, yes, we actually did buy this in exactly this state. My favorite landscaper in Atlanta said “Amelia, the landscape there looks Venutian, as in the planet.” Really, Venus with intractable weeds. Believe it or not, at some point, through archaeological digging we discovered there was a pea gravel turnaround in front of the house, I will post another picture of the…

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The Plan

The Plan for Driveway and Landscape

The Plan for Driveway and Landscape

At last, the plan has been nailed down and the contractor hired. Soon we will see a passable driveway. As in a surface dedicated to the movement and parking of motor vehicles. Life is good.

I am very happy with the contractor we finally hired. I actually went through 7 interviews/pricing exercises. It got pretty boring and repetitive. No, no, no and more no. I shouldn’t be surprised at what I found in the way of contractors but I am. A good one is a rare find. It is a difficult call for me if I am really picky and uncooperative or if other people are just clueless. Probably a little of both. A great deal of stuff these guys were asking me to tolerate I just wouldn’t. People are too nice sometimes.

So, here is the Final Plan. The area of stepping stones ended up so big I used half seashell stones and half salt finish plain stones. The reality is that is how many we had on hand and I think I will like it. The idea behind this area is that we have a place to park all the trash cans and recycling bins and the mailbox will be moved over to the edge of the stones for a path to the mail as well.

Please comment on the design before it is too late!!

Materials for Plan B

I arrived home the other day to find a baggie filled with shell on my front porch,  along with the shell was a business card from a contractor who would actually build a driveway for me and install landscaping. Glory Hallelujah!

I have found I live in a word of mouth sort of a place, forget Angie’s List. I doubt I could have found this guy by any conventional means. This contractor does not even have an email address – I am not entirely sure I could even text him although he does have a cell phone.

Here are the materials I have selected for the driveway:

Landscape Plan “B”

Based on my previous contractor encounters, I have decided to change my design direction a bit. I am glad I am not paying myself!  

Due to my inability to find a contractor to pour concrete and redo the pea gravel driveway, I have decided to outline the parking area with 6×6″ pressure treated timbers and redo the pea gravel; hoping to find a contractor to take care of all of that and install landscaping as well. I should mention that pea gravel driveways are common here, somebody has to know how to build them. If only I could find this person…

It seems a good idea to call the local gravel supplier for contractor recommendations – asking for a referral to someone who has their own bobcat to do the grading work specifically. So, this guy shows up with another guy who has a bobcat (not what I asked for at all) I have been getting some, to me, absurdly expensive prices for what in Atlanta we would call brown pea gravel they call ‘chattahoochee stone’ down here. Because it comes from the Chattahoochee River (that runs through Atlanta) once you pay for shipping the stone it doubles or triples the price.. I ask these guys for a local material. Turns out there is one – shell, duh?! near the ocean, yes..what comes out of the ocean? I have never seen a shell driveway. One of my classmates from landscape school works in Tampa, so, I email him to ask about the shell. Yup, we use it all the time. Wow, what a great idea..

More Internet research. I found a guy in Jupiter (the town, not the planet) who builds shell driveways and dragged my husband to go and have a look. I think they look great and he agrees Meanwhile, I go shopping at our local concrete producer and find they make something called Atlantian stone (like Atlantis, not Atlanta) the countertops are fantastic and monstrously expensive..but I can opt for some reasonably priced stepping stones to go with my shell driveway. This is finally coming together.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild Coffee- Pschotria nervosa

Wild Coffee- Pschotria nervosa

This Wild Coffee is in my neighbor’s yard. A native shrub well suited to high shade with attractive dark green foliage reminiscent of Gardenia without the flowers or insect problems.
A good butterfly plant with flowers and small (coffee-like!) berries.

Rustic Hacienda Concept – Third Contractor Encounter

I’ve decided the design concept for the landscape is Rustic Hacienda. Our house is psuedo Southwestern in appearance, I think the former owners went to Santa Fe at some point and picked up some architectural details and incorporated them into a 1960s vintage ranch house. It is a pretty off the wall residence for two design professionals who met at a big Architecture firm. In keeping with the Rustic Hacienda concept I have had a cattle fence installed in the back for the cattle/Greyhounds. Generally I refer to my dogs as horses, they are 70 and 90 pounds. Small horses. We even have a ranch gate.  My sister clearly thought the fence was weird, but she really did not get the concept.

These fences are common in this area and will last at least 30 years. My husband, the fence builder and I were standing in the yard laughing that the fence would outlive all of us. Either that or I am going to be a really old lady PO’d because the fence needs replacing. The guy who built the fence was an actual cowboy who wore spurs. I got the vapors when I saw them; pure masculine footwear.

Which brings me to my third contractor encounter. I asked the fence builder if he could refer someone to do the concrete work. He did and this guy said ” I can come over next week.” I had high hopes for this, then he sent me his price. $40 a linear foot! for the curb. I almost choked. Of course, no driveway included. I decided to call a friend of mine who builds things like this in Atlanta to get his opinion on the price. His opinion, no more than $10 a linear foot. At this point, I have decided to get out of the concrete business altogether and go to PLAN B.

 

My Dog had a Chiropractic Adjustment

I have a retired racing greyhound, two in fact, I have had a couple of greyhounds for years. They are great dogs, I think everybody should have one (or two) My large spotted dog, Charles, woke up last Sunday in pain. I mean, I was scared there was something seriously wrong.

Off to the emergency vet we went. They said cervical disk disease, in layman’s terms, a pain in the neck. The vets gave him (apparently) some extremely strong new drug (starts with a bu) Charles stood in the Living Room for 10-12 hours panting and slobbering (I thought he had peed on the floor – that much slobber) I thought it best to leave him be on Monday to recover and got my regular vet to give me some special food (Science Diet I/D) great stuff if you have a queasy dog. But, he really wasn’t eating and was still staring off into space Monday night. I called first thing Tuesday and took him to the vet that morning.

I live, as far as I am concerned, in the middle of nowhere, yet, our vet is into alternative medicine. She clearly disapproved of the bu-whatever they gave him, said “his neck vertebra is out of alignment”and proceeded to adjust it. A canine chiropractor. Charles is fine and can shake his head again. I think it took nearly a week for the bu-whatever to work its way out of his system. Fortunately, I did not give him any of the additional drugs the emergency vet had prescribed. Painkillers, steroids and and Pepcid for his stomach. Greyhounds and other sighthounds have very little body fat and metabolize things differently than most dogs. My vet did blood tests to make sure the bu did not damage the dog. It didn’t, I am glad I did not give him any additional drugs.

I would not go to a chiropractor, and certainly would never have dreamed of taking my dog (and paying for it) The dog spinal adjustment turned out to be a very good thing. Maybe I will go.

Second Contractor Encounter

We have this electrician working on the house, he has been around so much I feel like he is Eldon, from Murphy Brown, the television series that so offended Al Gore. I was telling him about my concrete curb woes and he says “I know a guy, he has got to be good, the famous Treasure Coast pool builder uses him” Sounds great..

I call this guy, he says “I will be over in 2 hours” I think, “Oh, no, not again” So, he shows up, of course, I have a drawing – and I can tell he thinks this is vastly weird. I just can’t believe how many things get built with no one thinking about it long enough to draw a plan. Scary. So, he gives me this really great price but alas, he does not know how to do the driveway either…I am thinking ??? I say OK will this price include broom finish on the concrete (the most common thing ever done to concrete, it just means is is literally swept with a broom while wet so the surface won’t be slippery) This contractor does not know what that is either.

I decide to keep looking.

Locavore shell concrete and my first contractor encounter

Locavore shell concrete and my first contractor encounter

This concrete is used in my neighborhood. It speaks of what washes up on the beach around here. Of course, I love it. So, me being me, I trolled around and found the guy who installed it. Of course, me being me, it is very expensive and labor intensive -Locavore concrete! who knew.

Since we really could not afford this insanely cool concrete for our driveway project, and I had decided to recreate the pea gravel driveway with a concrete curbed guest parking space. The contractor referred a local guy to do our teensy curbing project.

I called this guy and he says “I’ll be over in 2 hours” I am thinking, not a good sign. Long story short, he leaves an estimate on my door step that sounds pretty good. My husband says “it doesn’t say he is putting anything to drive on back in. This seems (foolish in retrospect) unlikely to me..I say “of, course he is going to put something back – we have to be able to drive on a driveway.” So the guy calls me while I am frying chicken and says “I don’t know how to do the driveway, I am just going to scrape the front yard off and put in a curb” which really means you can’t drive to the garage and you will have to park on the grass (I use that term loosely) until you happen to find someone who knows how to do a driveway. Seriously?? Yes, I burned myself and then refilled my empty wine glass.

I declined the offer and continued my search.