As a consultant or manager it’s easy to be objective, to see through problems, to find the most direct and effective solution. To evaluate risk and cost. I dont do that as well for my own projects. Is that true for you in your profession and life too? We needed a stucco knee wall for a backdrop, just 24 inches tall, 220 feet long, to define the front yard and provide a bit of a security barrier.

Why did I think that we could build that, go to Asia for a three week trip, continue running a bulb nursery, work hard at building our new nutritional company, keep a normal life, friends, family, house…?

Four months later, the backdrop is finished. After calling in a fantastic mason from Augusta (let me know if you need his contact information), it looks fantastic! And I used an old trick to make it look old: spray concrete down with liquid iron/nitrogen and it turns a beautiful rusty brown. Works on sidewalks, walls, pool decks… Plants look great against this color.

Plants that look great against a backdrop

Yellow leaved forsythia has really grown on me
Crinum Claude Davis rich, solid, dark pink
Mimosa Fine Wine pink powder puff flowers
Coreopsis – all those little tickseed seeded in last fall
Ammi majus – my new, gonna use every year, fall seeded biennial
Paw Paw tree – nothing like this to give a border a bold, big texture