Our new gardener, Jill Ziebell (www.FindYourInnerDirt.com), has a vision for the
St. Francis Inn. She believes that “Gardening is Art through Design.” And we are seeing her vision come to life.
She started by cleaning out the beds around the fish pond, cutting down the small tree that had sprouted there, and transplanting many plants to other places in our courtyard garden. She found an old cast iron pot on the property and had it brought to the front of the garden. None of us know how old it is, but we wouldn’t be surprised if it used to sit over a fire in the old kitchen 100+ years ago! As you can see in the picture above, Zeke used the area for a couple days as “his space”.
A close-up of Zeke enjoying “his space”.
The soil was tilled, the plants were positioned, and…it’s beautiful! She used pine bark mulch to this area to protect the plants and because it is so visible. Very attractive! Of course, the bamboo plants are shedding leaves at this time, so you see those yellowed leaves scattered over everything in the picture.
This work and expense will make our enclosed courtyard even more enjoyable for our guests.
And we’re enjoying it, too!
In order to use the old cast iron pot for planting, Jill had our Mike drill a couple of drainage holes in the bottom of the pot. Easier said than done! It took a couple hours of drilling with bits especially purchased for this job to get the holes drilled!
Colorful pots are strategically placed near the goldenrain tree….
You will see more Spanish-styled pots around our courtyard and pool area….
Remember the trees we had trimmed and the neighbor’s tree that was cut down a couple weeks ago? This is what’s left of our mulch pile (it was twice this large last week!). Mulch is being used all around the Wilson House, parking area, and parts of the courtyard.
