A White Vinyl Arbor for the Roses

Something was missing.  Ever since last winter when a big windstorm

blew apart our old white wooden arbor, the entrance to the 

upper level where the garden shed sits seemed quite bare.

 Looking out our bedroom window you can best see the 

layout of the garden shed and the row of

arborvitaes that flanked the wooden arbor.

After a nasty storm blew it to bits hubs put two of the peacock

chairs at the entryway, one of which was used to prop up the 

climbing rose that was formerly on the arbor.

Anyway as time passed and spring and summer arrived, I felt the 

desire to rebuild or replace the broken arbor.

 After searching online and reading many reviews of vinyl arbors, 

I selected the Vienna Arbor by New England Arbors company. 

Vinyl can look cheesy and this one seemed to get very good reviews and it

looked fairly substantial. 

 This was definitely a two person job, and hubs took the lead in

assembling the thing, while I held onto various parts as he drilled the set screws.

 After about one hour we took the assembled arch and side posts out to the lawn.

 And then I spotted a big hornets nest right in the middle of one of the arborvitaes!!

 There were so many hornets going in and out and crawling all around the paper nest.

I was more than a little nervous we were going to get stung!

We positioned the arbor a bit further out from the hedge, than it originally sat,

so we could avoid disrupting the hornets to get the darn thing in place.

 The arbor comes with heavy duty inserts for each post leg that get buried below the earth.

You can also choose to put 2x4's inside the legs and set in cement, but we just buried them.

 Its quite nice! Not difficult to assemble if you have someone who is handy

with a drill gun. The screws are the self drilling type, which means you must

firmly push the drill without the screw flying off, and hubs was good at that.

And you need two people holding various parts as it all gets put together. 

 After we set it up, I trained the roses to it and stepped back to admire it!

This company has various styles of arbors in different sizes as well as pergolas and 

other outdoor accents.  This is not a sponsored post, just sharing a good product with you all.

Since we plan to move, the cost of doing this was acceptable and I won't shed a tear to leave it 

behind. Can you believe it was less than $200? And it arrived in just a couple of days!

This Vienna Arbor by New England Arbors was purchased on Amazon.

Easy Peasy!

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Garden update: ramshackle shed in place!

 Its been a busy week at home outside, as hubs and son have dedicated themselves to making

my dreams come true.  What dreams?  Well I wanted to move a condemned shed in my mother-in-law's backyard, (which is next doors) into our yard, on the upper terrace near my vegetable garden.

So we began the project this week, and it started off with a few bonuses, like adding six feet of 

extra width to this narrow courtyard.  Justin's idea, and I love it! That meant building a new

granite block wall, which they did, and as we speak the extra pea gravel is being spread.

 In this "before" picture you see the arbor in front of some steps leading up to another lawn

where there is a row of green hedges.  Well that is where the ramshackle shed is going to be 

placed, and the arbor would be moved up in front of the hedges, and if we move one of them over 

it will make a nice entryway...so that happened today as well!

 So yesterday the guys pulled the old shed out from behind MIL's house. They looped a moving strap around it and it promptly kind of fell apart when they set it onto the ground. But I wasn't deterred.

Neither were they, luckily!  My son said he hadn't seen me that happy (EVER) in his lifetime....not sure I quite agree, but I was VERY happy this was going to finally happen.

 So they wrapped it up again, and secured it with some screws and stuff and off it went...

 That is just one side of it...we can fix that later. 

 In the meantime, Justin moved the arbor up to the top lawn and one of the trees was moved over after hubs dug it up with his excavator. Those machines are super handy, and I want to learn how to operate it so I can do exciting stuff like this all the time.

 We found some cobblestones and are going to have an apron leading into the back area where the shed and the kitchen garden will be located.  In the background hubs was pushing around some big blocks, and it turned out he had the idea to make a granite foundation for the dumpy shed.  What a great idea!  

 After the "foundation" was put in place (just like Thoreau's at Walden Pond, mind you) hubs

carried the shed over and set it into position.

Bingo! And just like that the area is taking shape and I am beyond ecstatic.  

This ramshackle shed project is just part of my magical garden plan.

Stay tuned for the expanded courtyard pics tomorrow!!

PS. I saw this book in an antique shop but the owner said it was not for sale.

"just for inspiration.." hmmmm I was inspired by it for sure after turning the pages.

I saw tons of designs using lattice, as well as the plants that like to grown on lattice.

So I ordered it from Amazon for .78 cents. Its an awesome garden book, in case you are 

looking for that kind of inspiration, like I am.

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