Our Plants arrive.

The Swedish Columnar Aspen goes into place at the corner of the house. The tree will eventually fill out to about 8 ft in diameter.

The front rain gardens get their first row of native plants—Little Bluestem. Down the middle a tall white spikey native called Culver’s Root will sit. Both of these plant do well with lots of water which is perfect for the rain gardens.

Both natives and non-natives fill the bed off the side of the patio. The non-native in the center area is a grass called Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass and is common in organic designs. It’s perfect for us because it’s height (3′ to 5′ at full growth) and feathery texture softens the visual lines of the concrete pillar. The plant on the outside is a native called Blazing Star.

Our landscape plan has had almost as much thought put into it as our entire house. Although the initial conceptual design played out rather quickly, the fine details of which plants we would select has been a rather drawn out one.

Our landscape Designer (Dustin Halverson) had planned for a tree to be placed close to the front windows of the house on the southwest corner. Although the tree was designed to provide some shade to the larger windows on this side of our house, its main purpose from a design perspective was to provide a sense of scale. For this reason, we opted for a Swedish Columnar Aspen. Its tall column like shape, gives the complementary height we need to tie the landscaping and the house together, without impeding on the actual structure itself. After mulling over a half dozen tree options this would prove to be one one of our easier design decisions.

There is so much to take in when selecting plants for your landscaping, grasses vs. flowers, native vs. cultivars/non-natives, size and shape, bloom time, soil type, and even color all come into play. Adding to the mix, we have committed to making our landscape be a functional piece of our homes “green friendly” design, and have received a grant from the Ramsey Washington Metro Watershed District to do so. This means, that native plants will need to be a large portion of our plantings in order to meet our obligation with the RWMWD.

Stacy and I both wanted plants that would work well with the lines of our house by having some similar sense of control and geometry. At the same time we knew (and Dustin reinforced the fact) that we would need to utilize these plantings to soften some of the lines and allow us to merge our home in with the surround landscape. For this reason, we have picked a mixture of natives, cultivars/non-natives. In some cases we have segregated the natives to specific areas like the rain gardens. While in other cases we’ve mixed the two, for either a sense of texture or or to create some variation in height or color.

After some negotiation we had settled on an initial planting plan, but the day before the plants were to arrive we started second guessing some of our choices. We both were hoping to have some nice bright oranges or reds out front but for the most part these are cultivars and we wanted to keep the rain gardens filled with natives. Our second choice in this case was some geometric looking bulb like plants called Allium (members of the onion family) but the ones we had seen and liked (in white) proved to be a cultivars as well. Although we had found a great resource for selecting native plants (bluethumb.org) having not seen many of the plants in person we were still feeling a bit uneasy. We decided to make a trip out to the Watershed district building, to look at their collection of plants, and see first hand what they might look like. This proved to be a huge help. Our contact at the watershed (Julie) proved to be incredibly helpful, not only showing us the plants we were interested in, but showing us many of them in various stages of growth. We also discovered several new plants like Culvers Root which we decided to integrate into our design. Ultimately, our trip to the watershed building validated many of the plant selections that Dustin had suggested, but also proved to be invaluable in helping us find some new options. We were also able to see how our rather small plants will blossom and grow into more substantial and prominent elements of our design over time, and see how the various combinations of plants will work together. I’d highly recommend you make a field trip of like this of your own if you’re going to make a substantial investments in your landscaping.

After some good recommendations from readers about the Neuton mower I was excited to give it a try. Then about that same time I was contacted by a representative of Neuton who is a reader of my blog, and offered to let me do a “test drive” of one of their mowers. I was more than excited to give the machine a go, and see how it performed in a real life setting. He also informed me that this wasn’t really something out of the ordinary for Neuton, as they offer a 6 Month Risk-FreeTrial period on the Neuton mower.

On Friday the mower arrived and our first impression was good. I expected that the mower would come in a million pieces but that was not the case. Everything arrived in one box (although it looked like it had been dragged behind the truck on its way to our house) we just unfolded the handle and it was ready to be charged.

Aethetically the machine is fresh and playful-looking with simple, solid, functional and friendly elements making up its form. The top hood was a semi-transparent plastic material that easily opened with the touch of fairly obvious orange release button. My only concern with this was that plastic piece seemed like it might be subject to breaking if something were dropped on it, but that is only the suspicion of someone with two small boys, and it had made it this far without any damage despite the condition of the box. Under the hood I found a pleasantly simple set of elements, a set of tools (wrenches etc.), the battery, a port for the safety key and height adjustment knob. The beautiful fresh green color and hot orange isn’t only for looks either. Every item on the machine that is a piece you will need to adjust, move or interact with has been color code in orange to make it easy to identify. The handles features, like that of the rest of the machine, are clearly marked (again in orange) and appear quite easy to operate—this is just simply good industrial design.

The battery is probably the heaviest item on the Neuton mower, but it comes out quite easily so you can charge it (it can also be charged with the battery in place). I plugged the battery in on Friday night and wanted to give it a good 24 hrs. of charge time before the first run early on Sunday morning. It says that it most often needs 8-12 hours of charge time after the initial charge for the battery to reach it’s full capacity so this means there isn’t a lot planning needed between each mowing.

For the first test run of the mower I decided that I would try the use the mulching feature. Our grass was extremely long and thick and I knew that this would probably be the biggest challenge for any mower (gas or electric). I set the height adjustment to it’s highest level (4″) and was ready to go. My first observation was that once I put the key in and turned the mower to the on position, there was no noise. Additionally, I didn’t have to wear out my shoulder using a pull start, like the gas mowers I have used in the past. Once I squeezed the handle the mower gave off a whirling sound (a bit louder than I had expected based on reviews I had read) similar to that of a small barn fan (yes I’m from farm country), but nowhere near as loud as traditional gas mower. The first pass through the grass left a perfectly crisp cut path of grass behind me, and the mulcher appeared to be working well. I did notice that as I moved into the really long grass, I had to mow a little slower and that occasionally it left a trail of grass clumps behind me, that the mulcher couldn’t devour. I would most likely say that in the areas where the grass was it’s thickest (almost 12″) that this would have been the result for most push mowers gas or electric. I also had to go back over a couple of areas where the wheels hand trampled down the grass but this wasn’t really an issue if I made sure to overlap my paths and alternate the direction I mowed. If there is one area where the mower may be a draw back to users its that it is not self-propelled. This doesn’t bother me, but for a smaller person with a hilly yard, this may mean a little bit more effort with their legs and arms than they’re use to.

Using the Neuton mower I completed our back lawn in 1 hour 10 minutes, about 1/2 the time that I would with our push style, rotary mower. I would guess that this would be less next time, as I don’t plan to let the grass grow to 12″ again anytime soon. The marketing materials say 1 hour of charge time for the battery and I got all of that and a little more by letting off the handle as I made my turns and when I moved between areas of the lawn.

My over-all review so far: the Neuton mower is simple and easy to use with well designed functional features. The mower cut through the tallest grass in our yard with acceptable performance and was excellent in the areas where the grass was at a more normal height. It was a bit louder than I had imagined but still much quieter than any gas mower I’ve heard. It exceeded my expected 1 hour window of run time on the battery, but probably would require two charges for an area larger than my 500 square feet of grass or to do my entire yard. My only real area of concern were the mowers weight, especially for people with hilly yards. Overall, I’d say the Neuton lives up to what all of it’s fans have told me, and really proves itself as a rival to the traditional gas mower.

Easy to operate handle features are clearly marked, including battery level.

The hood material felt a bit suspect to me for durability,
but I liked the easy access, almost elementary buttons.

I love the simple and straight forward nature of the industrial design.

The mower cut nice clean strips of grass with relative ease.

A side profile of the Neuton mower shows its streamlined design.

The 19″ model I tested came with a mulching plug, bagger and side discharge adapter.

I was most impressed with the Neuton’s ability to cut through the thick long grass without any real issues.

The 24″ x 24″ pavers appear to float away from the main structure, helping to maintain the our designs overall theme of sliding planes, that mimics the lots natural landscape.

The odd pie shape of our lot and the relatively strange shape that it provided for a our yard, meant that we needed some way to connect the house to these outlying spaces. In my initial drawings/sketches that we provide to our landscape architect Dustin Halverson I sketched out the idea of a series of concrete pavers that appeared to float away from the main structure of the building and towards the larger side yard. This would ultimately be an access path to a potential firepit/BBQ as well as the badminton/lawn bowling and playground areas. Dustin agreed that this would be a good solution to the challenge and with a few minor adjustments we made this apart of our plan.

After waiting roughly a month for our sod to set it’s roots, Dustin and the landscaping crew returned to start the next phase of the process. The pavers were laid out in the desired pattern and then flags were placed to mark the corners of each stone, so the sod could be cut away, allowing them to set the pavers flush to grade. The tricky part is setting the pavers square as well as not breaking the 24″ x 24″ pavers, which are surprisingly fragile. Tomorrow the crew returns to set the pavers into final position.

The Hardiboard around the garage, was the first area to get the two-tone color treatment of Turkish Coffee and Black Bean.

The front of the house and the garage get random matching pattern of two-tone brown that unites the two spaces.

The first green went on and felt a little too yellow for what we were trying to achieve.

The second green was still vibrant but easier on the eyes—much better. Now we need to touch up the front edge of the awning in the Black Bean and it’s complete.

When we first moved into our house this past December, there was so much to do. The exterior of our house was wrapped only in it’s vapor barrier sheeting, the Hardiboard siding was yet to go up and the awning at the front door was not even on our radar. What all of this meant, was that at some point down the road we were going to have to do some painting on the exterior of our house, to get it completed.

For several months as we waited for the snow to melt and then the rains to finally stop (we could use a little now), looking up at the unpainted sections of our house and knowing it need to be painted made me ill. The pieces of Hardiboard were divided into gridded sections separated by metal Z-channel, which seem to mean hours of time consuming trim work. When we finally got started with painting it a few weeks back, we were really surprised at how quickly it seemed to go. The divided sections actually proved to be a bonus as it allowed us to paint one color of the two-tone design at a time. Additionally, we could do a couple of quick sections in the evening or over a couple of hours on a Saturday without having to commit the enitr weekend to working on the house. We’ve now completed almost all of the front of the house in both colors but will need to get a small section of scaffolding to reach some of the very top pieces and most of the 4ft overhang and we’ll be done.

Painting the siding presented us with another design issue. The two-tone brown color, coupled with the silver of the UniClad siding looks really nice, but it seemed to be lacking something. I was feeling it and then Stacy said it, it seemed a bit pedestrian, so we decided that it might be fun to bring in a little punch of color to the underside of the front awning. Stacy went out and pulled a couple of dozen samples of colors we could use, and we settled on a crisp citrus green color. If you know anything about color, you know greens can be tricky. A little to yellow and they become acidic looking, a little too much blue and it can start looking primary, not the color we were looking for. In This case, the color proved to be a little to yellow and neither of us were in love with it. We decided to pick another green color to paint (Green Tease), and this time I think we got it right. The color is a nice contrast to the neutral silver/gray and rich browns of the siding, and a nice little unexpected twist to our house when people come to the front door.

With our grass now coming in at full capacity, it appears that we are in need of a new lawn mower. We own a manual, reel style, push mower, that we used at our last house to cut the relatively small front yard (but the size of our new lawn and the time it would take will not make this a realistic option) We have sworn ourselves off the use of a traditional gas powered mower (based on their incredibly polluting nature), which means we need to settle on some sort of electric mower. I’ve never owned one before, although I remember years ago seeing a friend’s parent mowing their lawn tethered to the house by a long extension cord. Although I am finding there are now a lot of options when it comes to electric mowers both those that require corded operation and those that run on a battery I am struggling to determine which one is best for us.

From what I understand reel style mowers actually provide the healthiest style cut for your lawn and there appear to be a couple mowers that offer this option. the SunLawn EM-2 model (a cordless option) got high reviews from Wired Magazine and weighs in at roughly 39 lbs. one of the lightest mowers I could find that wasn’t powered soley by my legs. Unfortunately, for me one the drawbacks to the Sunlawn is its rather “Wally and the Beav” design, which reminds me of something that you might find at the back of your grandparents storage shed—not horrible looking but certainly not really very nice looking either. The other option for reel mowers that caught my eye, is the Brill ASM380 Reel Mower (another cordless option) with a more updated design style, and a remarkably light weight of only 29lbs. However, as I dug deeper in my search the ASM380 model has been discontinued by the manufacturer with the release of an new mower in June of 2008. The German Engineer, Brill mower can actually be operated as a traditional push mower if the battery were to run out, before the lawn was completed. Since it’s recommended for a lawn of about 2,500 sq. ft. or less this push mower feature might actually come in handy.

The other option in electric mowers, is the more common rotary style cutting system. The apparent darling of this category is the Nuetron Electric Mower. with it’s stylish fresh green exterior making it appealing to look at. Plus, it features a wonderful little features like a push button start (with safety key), relatively long run time of 45-60 minutes and boast being the most powerful battery powered mower you can buy (360 watt-hours of battery energy.) Its draw backs, in this case are its rotary blade and weight of 69lbs. Another one of the rotary options is the Desa® Remington® Electric Mower, which boasts being the first and only 60 volt battery mower with 60 minutes of run time and corded option. The design of the Remington looks a bit more like a traditional gas mower, nothing really “wowing” here but not bad looking either. The great feature of this mower (in my opinion) is the option to either run it from the battery or as a corded model. I can imagine that there may be a few times that I might forget to plug it in before my next use or run out of juice before I get the lawn completed so this would be a great little feature.

I’ve tried to read a few online reviews as well as pick up on what users are saying in various forums, but the feedback seems to be greatly varied. People either totally love whichever model they have, or they completely loath it. All of them claim to cut tall grass and give a long run time but at the same time, without first-hand experience, I can’t separate marketing hype from manufacturing performance. What I’d really like to do is line the various models up across my front yard and test them side-by-side, to see which is best for me. Since that is not so likely to happen, I’m asking if anyone out there can share with me their first hand experience with their electric mower.

The Sunlawn EM2

The Brill ASM380

The Nuetron Electric Mower

Desa Remington Electric Mower

In April, Stacy had placed our order from Costco.com for a sectional to be used on our upper deck. She had spent a fair amount of time looking for one that would not only look good, be durable but also not cost a fortune. The sectional was scheduled to be delivered in 4 to 6 weeks from the time of order but this was not the case. In mid May, when the first delivery date was anticipated, but the furniture had not arrived Stacy called to locate it. They gave her a scheduled delivery date for the following week, this would prove to be 1 of 5 delivery dates that we would receive over the next 4 weeks.

During one of the calls that followed yet another false delivery date, Costco actually told Stacy that she should call the delivery company herself since they were a subcontractor of Costco. After a long and frustrating series of calls and scheduled delivery dates, Stacy finally received a call back from the delivery company, only to say they would not be delivering the furniture that Friday after all, but that it was being shipped to another delivery company because they would no longer be handling this business. Back to square one. The series of continued exchanges grew very frustrating as we couldn’t get an answer out of either Costco, the manufactuer (Soma International,who Costco again told us to deal with) or the finally identified “new” delivery company. After waiting at this point 9 weeks, we were afraid to cancel our order as the other sectional options we had looked at, were either sold out for the season or meant an additional 4 to 6 weeks delivery, putting us at the end of summer. Finally, after we received the 5th false delivery date and no call explanation from Costco as to what was going on, we canceled our order and membership. Then miraculously, the next day, we received another call, this time the delivery person was very helpful. He told us he wants to schedule a delivery for the next day, however he didn’t feel comfortable doing so since he didn’t actually have the piece at this time and this was not the normal procedure (since it might require that we take off from work to be there to receive it). However, he was finally able to tell us the location of our sectional and promised that it would be in his hands in the next few days, at which time he would schedule an actual delivery date. Ironically it seems our canceling the order is what prompted it’s delivery. Maybe we should have done that the same day we ordered it.

Ultimately the sectional has proved to be of really nice quality and to our surprise, arrived in fairly good shape, less a couple of scrunched pillows. I can’t say I’m impressed with my first Costco experience and will have to think long and hard before I make any other Costco purchases.