urbanite

Urbanite...not the radioactive crystalline material from the planet of Urban that renders our beloved superhero Urbanman as weak as a normal human...but rather the affectionate name for re-used concrete. When you remove concrete, you can take the broken pieces and reset them as pavers, re-dyeing if you like to achieve the colors you want. In our case, we might even be able to have the concrete pre-cut into the shapes we want. Anyway, we're seriously thinking of doing this when we remove the concrete driveway and the concrete pad from the un-permitted room that used to be at the back of the house.

We've seen concrete pavers elsewhere in the neighborhood and they look quite nice, and there are many really nice-looking projects on the web. The above pictures come from these links, which the husband recently came across during his research:

http://netzerolife.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-concrete-or-urbanite.html
http://www.terranovalandscaping.com/blog/2007/02/07/90/
http://tmousecmouse.blogspot.com/2011/05/eco-friendly-concrete-alternative.html

bamboo nursery: Bamboo Giant

2004-brochure-map

We'll probably need some bamboo in concrete containers to create a privacy hedge. A co-worker mentioned there's a huge bamboo nursery near Santa Cruz, approximately 1 hour from us. If there aren't better bamboo suppliers close by, we may drive out there some time.

Part of me wishes I could grow a lush bamboo grove with some of the really giant specimens. But we certainly don't have the space, and bamboo can really take over everything if you plant it in the ground (hence the concrete containers—that's solid concrete containers...no drain holes!...keep that in mind if you ever wish to grow some bamboo hedging).

http://www.bamboogiant.com/

solar LED pavers

Seriously pondering these for the front walk & driveway:

They charge during the day, and glow at night. I like the assymetrical, scattered arrangement from the example in Dallas.

Update: ok just showed the first photo to husband. He digs it big time. Posed this idea: putting some of these pavers in the backyard too...

dorky ideas in landscaping...

Patchwork-enjoy-x

(photo from sunset.com)

A coworker described his patio project and sent me this link today:
Budget patchwork patio (from Sunset.com)

The project profiled on the site clearly isn't dorky, but the first thing I thought was...hmmmmm...I think we need some pixel art patio action. Super dorky. And while I breifly pondered it, I don't need to go the Pac-Man/Space Invaders route. A beautiful pixelated gradient could look pretty good and be a fun and unexpected touch.

For fun, here are a few pixel visuals:

Image sources:
http://www.fubiz.net/2008/04/25/flowing-pixels/
http://www.architizer.com/en_us/blog/dyn/12923/pixel_tecture-2/

our jungle

A few days of steady rain = backyard jungle.

We don't know what to do with it right now, since we probably won't finalize our landscaping until spring/summer of 2012. Unless there are better ideas, we'll probably take a string trimmer to this until the dry season starts. So it'll have an ugly buzzcut until about May or June. Then, we'll solarize the heck out of it. Between this summer and the following...dunno.