The Story of the Courtyard

This story starts out with a picture or maybe two or three.  When we moved into our house in Walker we noticed how everyone seemed to come a long way to go to the front door.  There is no door on the side of the house where the drive is so mostly they walked back down the drive to the sidewalk then up the across to the house walk and up to the front door.  There is a gate to the back yard right on the drive but there was a section of grass that was usually soggy you had to walk across until you got to the concrete pool deck and on to the patio and back door.  So what do you do to make an easy access from the gate to the pool deck?

You beg, bribe or just steal a grandson and one of his pals and you make a courtyard with a walk connecting to the pool deck.  Harry and I found a nursery in Mandeville that had some pavers and I enlisted Christopher and a pal and we laid a courtyard and moved the fountain from the front yard to the center of the courtyard.  Then we created flower beds all around.  Harry built an arbor for the walk.
I don't have many before and during pics because they were on my computer that crashed and burned last year.  Here is what I do have.

The first is the backyard when we bought the property.

The second is another view of the backyard.  The courtyard starts between the end of the house (the garage) and the shop and occupies that area

This is the area between the shop and the house.

Now you enter the courtyard from the drive. The picture
at the beginning is what the bed on the right looked in
 2010 right after the courtyard was finished.

The original "Pot Tree".  It changes each season.  

This picture shows the same area as the photo above with two
of my grandsons.  Now the shop connects with the courtyard.

This is the walk between the courtyard and the pool deck.

This is the fountain that was in front of the large window
in the front yard now moved to the courtyard.

Pool deck now connects to courtyard and sidewalk
to covered patio.

I'll add some pics in the next post that shows the garden as it has progressed.

The Purple and Gold

Many of you know that I'm retired from LSU after 30 years service.  What you probably don't know is that the head of Human Resourses, my boss, Forrest Benedict made the final 5 lyears of my service an absolute hell.  He constantly undermined me and kept me from getting any raises during that time making my retirement much lower than it should have been.  I have never stepped foot on LSU ground since January, 1999 and any previous "friends" at LSU I have either had contact with them at their home or FB which has really helped me work through my negative feelings.  I loved LSU with everything in me until Leona Catalon entered my life at LSU Facility Services. As President of the Staff Senate I saw many wrongs done by our administration and had to keep my mouth shut since I was just one cog in the wheel.  Every many thanks letter I received from Chancellor Bud Davis brought bile to my throat.  Leona made me quit the Staff Senate after two years and there was nothing I could do about it.  It was the one thing that kept me happily connected to LSU and now it was gone.  Joan Thompson in the main personnel office offered me a chance to get away from Leona and return to the main office in Thomas Boyd Hall.  Everything was fine until she met her future husband, married and moved to Nevada.  Then Forrest and Marion (Caillet) became my bosses.  Forrest did not want to follow Civil Service guidelines and felt that I was constantly thwarting his recommendations when I was trying to keep LSU out of Civil Service appeals hearings.

That's a quick summary of a long story.  Why do you ask am I putting this in my "Garden Blog"?  The reason is I resented everything LSU when I retired and this festered and grew until I found it even to hard to see the purple and gold or support LSU whether it was the Universit or their teams.  That is not a good feeling and it was not good for me.  My garden has always been my escape and I found comfort working in the dirt and planting my "babies" and watching them grow.  Believe it or not I just realized something the other day...my garden has a lot of purple and gold and I think this is the beginning of my reconciliation of that part of my life.   Maybe this year I'll be able to join my family and friends wearing the purple and gold.  Hopefully, I'm ready to remove this hurt and negative feelings of LSU from my mind and learn to love LSU again as I once did.

Here are a few pics showing my purple and gold from my garden all the way down to my orchids.

Citrus Garden

The Citrus Garden is the newest garden in the yard.  Harry bought a Navel Orange and a Satsuma and put them down last May right before he left for Canada.  When Hurricane Isaac came through while we were in Canada he stripped the poor Satsuma of all her leaves and really threw it around.  When we returned in October Harry staked it back up and I started loving it and it's finally coming back around.  Last week when I got home from the camp I planted the orange daylilies that Harry had dug up from the Azalea Garden.  Since we stayed several days longer than expected the daylilies were in really bad shape between the heat and the bare roots.  They seem to be responding to a litlte fertilizer, a little water and some really good old dirt.

This is the beginning of the Citrus Garden.  More pics as it progresses.













The other gardens are progressing really well heading into summer.  They are taking a good bit of watering in the summer heat.  Here are some pics to bring you up to date.

This is a spider lily from down in Venice.  They will be moving
to the Marsh Garden this fall where they can get more consistant
moisture.

Above right is a newer pic of the Citrus Garden.  The containersplants are growing & the day lilies and African lilies are coming back from their shock of going a week from digging up to planting. 

Some of the other day lilies and the Butterfly irises in that area have already bloomed and below are pics of those.

More pics to come later in the summer as the bed fills in.  Next blog with be on teh LSU garden.