Friday, August 15, 2008

Meandering Around



just a few pics of things that I see wandering around the DFW metroplex...


Now, if somebody had asked me what I thought about painting their house dark purply pink, I would have told them it was a really bad idea. But for some reason, it really kind of works on this old shot-gun house...


They're called shot-gun houses because you can open the front door and shoot a gun and it would go right through the house and out the back door without hitting a wall... Usually there's a sitting room in front, a smallish kitchen on one side of the middle, a bathroom on the other side of the middle and a bedroom in the back.


This is a really bad pic of a wild clematis pitcheri, called bluebill or leather flower. I had to take the pic in a hurry and couldn't get the camera to focus right... any way, I gathered some of the seeds, so I'm going to see if I can get them to grow in the yard. In Texas, these aren't rare, but they're not that common either.

and next, we have a couple of random shots of a half dead poplar tree and it's roots, there's something about gnarled up wood that I really like...


Nothing else to say today.

See you later.

5 comments:

  1. I hope you have wondersful success with your seeds! I love gnarled wood too...very soothing to look at.

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  2. Title the wood and sell it on E-Bay!

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  3. I think the color of the house offers up some huge opportunities for horticultural mischief! Think of the contrasting color schemes you could use to knock peoples' sensibilities around.

    I had a colleague who posited that all the exterior walls of your house don't have to be the same color. Paint them to go with the garden scheme you seek. If one is timid about that hot purple in the front, just take it to the back and have fun.

    Thanks for the optic stimulus!

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  4. Many years ago a friend of mine got married and moved into a shotgun-like place. That was the first time I ever saw that style. She told me it was formerly housing for military officers. It was probably 300 sq ft! This goes back to the late 1950s. I guess the government sold off surplus housing after the WWII. I knew several folks back in the day who lived in quonset huts that were also military surplus.

    The paint job is interesting, but not my taste. I'm used to the dull earth tones of Arizona!
    Aiyana

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  5. garden wise guy - I think I'd start with "pretoria" cannas, with variagated leaves and tangerine blooms...

    Aiyana - My feelings about the paint job are mixed. Part of me would like a more traditional color, but on the other hand, life is too short to spend it beige....

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