Lower Ninth Ward Homeowner's Journal: Entry #1

Well, the weather is finally starting to warm up here in New Orleans, and the garden is starting to recover from a freak cold snap that killed most of our tropical plants. Now that I can bear to look out at my yard again, I figured it's time to start a new Steemit project chronicling our various homeownerly travails. Of course, we've done some work on the inside of the house, but the backyard is my forte. Plus it was virtually a blank slate when we bought the place last January, so that will be the focus of this journal. Oh yeah, did I mention I made a video about that? I know, I know... still haven't made the switch to Dtube.

First off, here is a not-uncommon visitor to the vacant lot next door, a Great Egret:

Next I'll bring you around to the front of our house to showcase the most ecologically-significant recent addition to our yard, a pecan tree. This is an Elliot pecan, recommended in this area for its disease resistance. We are planting as a street tree mainly for shade. The people here look at me funny whenever I plant things in the grass between the sidewalk and the road. They say, "Where are people supposed to park?" It looks off-center now but we're planning on digging up the walkway and remodeling the front of the house so it will make sense in 10-15 years, trust me.

Along the fence between us and our only neighbors we have planted an assortment of bulbs to give us several months of color. We also just planted some clematis vines and morning glory (for Dani) here. The crocuses didn't do anything this year, but the species tulips, hyacinths, and muscari have just finished. Here you can see daffodils and the first red tulip. Later three varieties of allium will bloom (hopefully) in succession. The neighbor has a rotting blue tarp which is slowly disintegrating and blowing all over our yard. I felt like we needed some good 'chi' to guard this side of the property in a friendly way.

We have two beds in front of our porch which were fantastically overgrown. We are still picking this alien-looking purple plant out of them but it's slowly getting better. The theme for these beds is white and fragrant, let me know if you have any suggestions for plants! The showcase plant is white ginger which smells absolutely intoxicating. We will also have moonflowers growing up our fence railing again. Here is one of the beds, still recovering. The other one looks about the same.

Here is a closeup of the ginger. It gets about 6 feet tall.

We are still looking for some white ground covers so let me know if you have any suggestions. This is candytuft which we just planted and there are also snowdrops, which were apparently once used medicinally.

This is creeping fig, which covers Garden District mansions most splendidly. It is native to Taiwan, and, true to its names, produces fruits if allowed to grow to its full size.

We have the start of a fine mint collection and a bay laurel growing in pots on the porch.

Moving around to the back porch, here is one of our sad fern baskets. You can also appreciate Hive account@daniphotography's fine detail work on the paint. Porches here are traditionally painted sky blue. There are several expanations for this, probably the most rational is that it keeps birds from nesting in the eaves.

Now it looks like I didn't get any shots of the whole back yard, but here is the vegetable garden. One bed is greens, the other corn. In theory, all those weeds are some kind of onion which I'd like to keep around as a companion plant/wild mulch, but we shall see...

And here I am fiddling meaningfully with a head of lettuce. The other plants are brassicas and the little green lines are fenugreek, a nitrogen fixing herb.

In the other bed, corn. Planted on the New Moon in February! In the foreground you can see a volunteer watermelon seedling.

We have some bananas which nearly died this winter. I don't expect to get fruit off them but they are a desert variety called 'Ice Cream'.

Here's the scuppernong arbor. I really hope they didn't die. Actually, one of them did die while we were vacationing last August. That rock is holding a vine from its neighbor down in an attempt at ground layering.