Precious weekends

The true meaning of an introvert is a person that recharges their batteries by being alone. An introvert can be outgoing, loud and very sociable but it drains their batteries to be with others all the time. 

I am a total introvert. 

That's why weekends are so precious.

As lovely as meeting up with friends for meals is, I just lavish the time spent doing projects around the house more.

Projects around the house is, as you know, never ending.

For the past two weeks, Aaron and I have been out with the cold so things have been on quite a slow pace. Nonetheless, I  have totally recovered and was itching to put all the projects in my head into practise.

The Christmas cactus put on QUITE  a show this year. The flowers don't last long so I've picked the dried up flowers and the second buds are now growing.

 New plant for in the house.

 During the week nights, I dabble a bit in block printing. All in the name for our Dec wedding.

Our neighbours FINALLY retained their side of the fence. The problem? They retained it too high in a certain area and back filled it so that the fill came over our retaining wall.  Aaron wanted to redo our retaining fence all over again and I suggested since I wanted to use that space to grow things, it would be great to add height and plant space with cinder blocks. They call them Builders blocks here and are of quite a shortage. We grabbed enough for the current problem and put soil in the holes and sowed some herbs.

 Radishes be like, haroooooo.

To clean up the undone alfresco area, I decided to finally put a pinterest project into action. I have so many pots of succulents that the alfresco area feels really cluttered. Ala, vertical succulent wall!
I won't go into detail as how I did it as there are way better tutorials out there.

I bought plywood and covered it with builders film. I secured it by stapling the film into the back of the board. I then measured and cut pieces of timber to make the box.

I secured these pieces of wood by nailing them from the back of the plywood.

After that is done, in goes the potting mix. I used one and a half 25 L bag. I compress this by using a mallet and an unused piece of timber. Make sure it is compact or else your potting mix will listen to gravity.

Next, take some pre wetted spaghnum moss and spread them out all over the board. It need not cover every inch. The moss is to hold the dirt into place. Next, place the chicken wire over the top and staple this onto the top of the wooden frame. Make sure it is taut.

Cut excess chicken wire off.

I then used the circular angle saw to but pieces of a much thinner piece of wood to make a 45 degree angle corner frame. I nail these to the top of the frame. This is just to make everything look nice.

Then, the fun and back breaking part begins!! Take cuttings and start cutting the chicken wire to accommodate succulents. Some will be easier than others. Secure succulents into place with extra moss, to snuggle them in.

This is half of my succulent cuttings. I had to stop here as my back was killing me. Oh old age!

The other thing I did was to hopefully revive my orchids after they had succumbed to root rot. I let them dry out a bit and then made kokedama arrangements out of them. I basically used left over wet spaghnum moss and surrounded the orchid roots with orchid mis (READ BARK) and surrounded that with the moss. Wack it with builders line and you saved yourself $60. Hipster projects, say what.

Oooo! Also, our dot hangers arrived and I got to put them up. My idea of having them clustered was foiled by practicality of where studs were, FOILED! Alas, I spaced them out and even had two on the other side to create some sort of balance. It's nice to have a place to hang things and even without hangings, the dots create an interesting focus point anyways.

                 
                  

This is fast becoming a home blog!