Gordon's Garden Diary

29 Apr '08 4:49 am

Looking at the pictures of the unfinished house, you can see so many possibilities. A little imagination and alot of hard work done over time, and it could be paradise. With your adventurous spirit I am sure you are more than up to the challenge. Thanks for telling me about the earthship website, I looked it up, and they have some beautiful homes. The phoenix is amazing, I really like the adobe look, being from California and living in Texas,I guess it has a familiar feel. The bottle walls are my favorite parts, talk about turning trash into treasure, I will never look at an old glass bottle the same. Good luck on your new life and please keep us updated, lots of pictures, please.

29 Apr '08 5:55 pm

Hi, Faerisweet!

I'm glad you liked the web page about the houses. To me, they look rather other-worldly and very beautiful. Such a departure from traditional, rectangular homes! I plan to go back to the valley in about 3 weeks, so I may get some more pics of that building. We'll see how the trip goes.

As for pictures, here's the first picture of one of my Auricula primrose plants that i grew from seed 3 years ago. It bloomed for the first time last spring, but the plant is much larger now and it has many more buds this year. Unfortunately, it was a very cool and dull day here today (now, at 11:00 p.m., it's raining heavily), so the picture is a bit dull. I tried using a flash but it changed the entire colour tone. I'll try again when the sun returns; by then, the other auriculas should also be in bloom.

I'm glad to hear the rain as we haven't had any for about a month. It seems as if either we get too much or none at all this year! In spite of the unseasonably cold weather, I've been watering for the last couple of weeks, so it's good to get a proper watering from the sky!

Cheers!

gordonf

30 Apr '08 10:14 am

What a beauty..

4 May '08 3:34 am

My my, Gordon! It is much closer to complete than I had imagined! And it is huge! You are going to rattle around in there after your caravan-home! Methinks Joey will be getting a companion... Wink

4 May '08 3:24 pm

Hi, Jack!

Yes, it will be a dramatic change of scale IF I get the place, but there's no guarantee of that! So I may, in fact, end up in a much smaller place. Time will tell! I'm going back there on the fifteenth of the month for the Spring Planting Festival and I'm taking a friend with me. She has built one of these Earthship houses not far from there and she wants to see this one as well as to show me the one she helped to build. So not only will she be able to give me reliable information but she'll be able to help with the driving and generally make the road trip seem much shorter.

It finally seems to have warmed up somewhat here and I did quite a bit of gardening over the last couple of days. The garden still isn't very photogenic, however (still lots of weeds), so I haven't any pictures today. But I should have some soon!

I guess you're heading into early autumn now, eh? How did the eucomis seedlings do? Mine now have bulbs over an inch across so they should bloom well this summer. I've given quite a few away to free up more room in the pot!

And my 2 tree peonies both have buds on them: the white Chinese one has 4 and the yellow Tibetan one has one, its first! I sure hope I'll be able to take them with me!!

Well, al the best!

Cheers!

gordonf

Gordon's Garden Diary

Gordon,

Of Earthships and Auriculas

Change of scale

Change of Scale