Icelandic poppy

This is a different variety of poppy from our others. It is an Icelandic poppy. The Icelandic poppy is slightly smaller, and the color is a different shade of orange. The petals of the flower are much more delicate and textured. Were as our other poppies last around a week, these are lucky to last more than 24 hours.

Failed to thrive

The original seedings we placed in the self watering planter didn't react well to being placed outside, so we got some new ones from a local organic farm. As you can see these are very robust and have been doing well.

More Spring flowers

These are a new variety in our yard. I'll have to ask Kathleen what they are. I especially like the range of tones across the flower.

Poppies

We have a number of varieties of poppies in our front yard. They do extremely well here in the harsh sun and the bees love them. They also peak a bit later than the irises to make the color of spring last a bit longer.

Gratuitous Dog Photo

Andy the pocket Shepherd seemed annoyed by my flash when I took this photo. He just stared at me as if to say what was I doing by disturbing his nap. 

Bear Lake, RMNP

Here's the canonical shot of Bear Lake in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Took this about a week ago. The snow pack up there is extremely thin for this time of year.

Hoop house

A hoop house is a poor mans green house that uses plastic sheeting wrapped over flexible piping to form a roof. It allows you to buffer the plants from the variable spring weather we have here in Colorado. I made a very simple one here that just drapes the plastic over a wire frame so that I can still easily access the plants. If it works out, I'll build a more substantial one using PVC pipe.

Repairing winter road damage

Most of the way up the eastern side of the Loveland Pass road, the first pull out we can upon was the same location as this road construction. Sometime in the winer someone had wrinkled the guard rail separating the windy road from a few thousand foot drop.

Georgetown Conoco

This little art deco style garage is on one of the side streets in the little mountain town of Georgetown Colorado. I love the architectural elements such as the golden brick and the use of the original owner's name as part of the facade. Its been wonderfully restored, and I purposely swing by it when I'm traveling through the town to the high country.

Occupy Denver

Stopped by the Occupy Denver booth at Denver's Cinco de Mayo festival. 

Bikes seem to be their primary mode of transport. 

Capital Facelift

The State Capital is undergoing renovation. You can just barely see the skirt protecting the base. Took this at the local Cinco de Mayo celebration. 

Self-watering planter - filling it with soil

The drain pipes are loose in the tub. 

To keep them from shifting, soil is packed around the pipes to just over the top of the pipe. The soil helps to wick the water through out the bottom of the planter.

Next a layer of low density fill is placed on top of the layer of soil. In this case we used a product made out of coconut husks. This layer is where the bulk of the plant lives, while its roots dive into the moist soil layer to drink.

On top of this layer is placed wood chips to act a mulch, and to help reduce evaporation. 

We will see this summer how well this works. 

Self-watering planter - reservoir

To create a cavity under the soil I used perforated plastic drainage pipe. The pipe is covered with a fabric sleeve to keep the cavity from filling with soil.

At the end of the each pipe I added a section of smaller pipe to function as a fill spout. 

This is then covered with fabric and secured with zip ties. 

The two pipes are then fitted into the lined bath tub.

Self-watering planter - finishing the interior

The idea behind a self-watering planter is that you create a reservoir inside of the planter to keep your plants hydrated. Before installing the reservoir, I need to construct a floor to support the cavity.

For this I used a few 2x4's supported by cross members secured to the exterior walls. 

Once the floor was in place, a bath tub was created by lining the container with heavy gauge plastic sheeting.