A Very Generous House Warming Gift
Getting the pergola completed this year was made possible when my cousins Marlon and Debbie offered to pay for my landscaping material as a house warming gift. I had already purchased the Forest Pansy Redbud, Limelight Hydrangea, and 8 coral bell plants, but still needed to purchase the green mountain boxwoods (3), green velvet boxwoods (3), Bobo hydrangeas (2), and buckthorns (3), plus mulch. Covid-19 was making it difficult for nurseries to get plant material, so I bought whenthey came in and the nursery took care of them until I was ready to plant them. While I had been a decades long customer of Lakeview Nursery they seemed completely indifferent to being a part of this project. I went with my drawing, so didn’t need landscape design work, but at a minimum I wanted to pay them to plant at least the two trees, but preferably all my plants. I paid 60% of the plant price many times at Inner Circle for that service. When I got a STRONG sense that didn’t want to work with me in that manner I started looking at other nursery options. Fortunately Mom and ‘Em, the new coffee and wine shop around the corner from me had recently installed their outdoor space. I called Theresa Ferrari, one of the owners (the Mom) and she shared with me her landscaper, Mike Acra, Acra Landscaping.
Mike came to my house. I shared with him the quote for the remaining plants I had gotten from Lakeview and he told me he could source those plants, even get larger buckthorns and green mountain boxwoods, and install everything including what I had purchased already. His quote was very close to just the plant material at Lakeview, so Marlon and Debbie approved them doing it all. While I was excited to design my first landscape, planting and yardwork falls under must do, not like to do in my arsenal of skills. I was very grateful to have this gift bestowed on my home. Mike’s crew arrived early on Friday, Sept 18 and had everything planted by noon.
The only thing I needed to do was finally properly daylight the downspout on the left side of house. After months of back and forth with the City on what I should, could do with that downspout I got an email confirmation that i could just daylight it, let the water run into my yard. I just needed to pull the water run off away from the house foundation. I’ve had an ugly, black drain pipe attached since the box gutters were repaired which had to go! My father sent me a YouTube video of what he thought I needed. It would have been a lot of digging and I knew I’d hit mass roots. I found another video that was simpler, although I did not follow it fully. With the gutter guards I had installed at the roof line I didn’t need a filter kit and I wanted the connection from the downspout to match what I had done with the rear downspouts. I also did not trench 10′ away, I did 5′ because it was still more than required and that was the scrape length of the PVC pipe that I had. I did use the pea gravel, T-pipe connector and drain grate. My hole under the t-pipe went down about 18″ and took the entire bag of gravel.
I’ll get some top soil and throw down seed to get some grass in that area. Fall is the time to overseed your yard and that is my next weekend project. I’m trying to get tall fescue grass to be the dominate grass in the front and side yard.
The final touch for the landscape was the addition of landscape lights. My father installed Malibu lighting at my old house. The technology for those lights have changed a lot over the years. We had incandescent bulbs that my mother and I had to change out every spring. I did convert to LED a few years ago, but it appears Malibu has gone out of business. For this project I purchased Hampton Bay lights from Home Depot. I had Mr. McGhee, my electrician, install another outside receptacle on the side of my house (I have one by backdoor and on porch, neither in a good location for accessing the left side of house). I purchased the Hampton Bay 120-watt transformer (2), 9.8-Watt Millennium Black Adjustable Light Color Outdoor Integrated LED Landscape Flood Light (10 – bulk price eligible when you buy 10 or more) and 14-2 landscape wire. I needed 75′ for left side and 50′ for right. These lights are even better than the old Malibu lights I’ve used. The stakes are metal instead of plastic. They have an extension plate you could hit with a hammer (vs. the top of light) and they have adjustable light settings. You can choose from 2700K Warm White, 3000K Soft White or 4000K Daylight light colors. These pics were set on 3000K, but I have subsequently gone done to the 2700K setting.
Stunning if I must say so myself.
and Bobby scheduled to install the final two columns that would support the pergola. Sadly he shared that Ray had lost his battle with cancer. 
Joe Hall, owner DJK Painting Co., and his crew took over painting my house on August 6th. September 6 she was complete. They lost 7 days to rain, so in just 15 weekdays, two Saturdays, and one Sunday, the wrap up day, my house was transformed from an ugly duckling that had been cited by the City of Cincinnati for peeling paint on the windows (they didn’t care about the patch work look of the asbestos tile) to arguably the most beautiful house in Camp Washington. Elation seems like such a small word to describe how I feel right now. I’ve been waiting almost three years to see these colors (Sherwin Williams 
