Showing posts with label for. Show all posts
Showing posts with label for. Show all posts
Thursday, November 6, 2014
new heat for my old shop
Pellets are made mostly from wood waste, and there lots of options on wood source and several companies in western Montana produce the pellets. I am really glad about having this sort of locally made option, and especially one that uses waste from other industries. For example, one company is primarily a furniture business, and converts its lumber scraps into pellets.
Other nice things about pellets are their low emissions, and the abundant, pleasant heat produced- the same kind of heat as from a wood stove. Plus, it is thermostatically controlled. The downside is the high initial cost, but with the low cost of fuel ($4/ 40 lb bag), I will break even pretty soon. Even if it took me much longer to break even, the benefits far outweigh the costs.
With a kerosene heater, I would use about 20 gallons a year to heat the shop, so at these prices it would be around $200/ year to heat. If the price doesnt go up any more, I figure I will break even in 2-3 years.
For those in the city of Missoula or the parts of Missoula County that are in the "air stagnation zone," you can install pellet stoves, but they have to meet the EPA emission particulate guidelines (that is, emit less than 1 gram/hour) be on the approved list.
As for as the installation, I got nearly everything used, from Home ReSource; including the majority of the venting, electrical and wall materials.
I decided to tile the surround, but the nice thing with pellet stoves is that they have very low set backs to combustibles. For this stove, and the way I have it oriented, it could be as close as 1.5” to the walls.
So although I didnt need to surround the stove with a non-flammable material, I thought it would be an opportunity to add a little pizzazz to the shop to break up the monotony of the OSB covered walls. Plus it makes me feel better knowing the stove is surrounded by concrete, ceramic and grout- not OSB and dry wood!
I found this interesting tile at Home ReSource, so I figured Id give it a try. It looks like wood, but it is ceramic tile. I thought it would be the perfect tile for a woodworking shop.
On the same trip, I got all the tile, grout (that I totally over bought), concrete backer board, grout sealer, a GFCI receptacle, outlet box, and thermostat wire, for only, ...wait for it… $36! Thanks Home ReSource!
I am happy with how it came out, but more importantly I am glad to be heating the shop with a renewable, and locally produced resource.
Wednesday, November 5, 2014
Garden and Patio Decorations For Wonderful Out of doors Lifestyle
The lawn decorations you select will provide your outside "rooms" style and personality... so go with what attracts you. Are you official and stylish, or informal and casual? Whatever approach you take, keep in mind that too many lawn and terrace styles provides you with a populated look. Blossoms and plants should play just as big a role in your decorations as elements and furniture... let them enhance each other.
Visualize Key Furnishings
First, imagine your terrace, outdoor patio or lawn place. Plan out a few different templates for the primary, larger decorations items that will need to fit within your space. These would be seats, seats, platforms, and cooking or cooking channels. If you perform from house, you can even style an outside "work station" for your laptop and office perform.
Weather-proofed wickerwork, wrought metal, forest, or teak wood furniture are excellent options for terrace and lawn furniture. Performance is important, but go for style and comfort, too!
There are some excellent styles in terrace furniture, assured to fit your personal style. Create sure what you buy is very resilient and weather proof, since your furniture will come in contact with sun, wind and rainfall. Be individual and store for the most eye-catching furniture that fits these requirements and youll reduce costs in the end.
Outdoor Illumination Sets the Mood
Once you recognize your primary furniture, add even more environment to your lawn and terrace with external lighting. Illumination preparations can change the entire feel of your patio. You can go for joyful, demure, eye-catching, warm, or bright!
Outdoor terrace lighting are created to withstand all the elements, and feature protected and weather-resistant elements. There are quite a few styles you can select from. The opportunities include free standing lights, units, shady and world lights, lamps, outdoor umbrella lighting, BBQ lighting, sequence lighting, and ground lighting. Research options and rates for what attracts you, as well as whats practical for your purpose.
Choose Your Accents
There are no guidelines to lawn and terrace styles... and lots of choices! Here are some excellent accessories that will add life and appeal to any yard:
Garden Benches: Have you ever observed a traditional regular placed "just right" in a garden? Its a very welcoming vision. It doesnt need to be elegant... just a spot to sit down and rest.
Decorative Planters: To create a eye-catching factor of interest, set out a few plant containers loaded with wonderful flowers in different places of your lawn. You can move them around, and replant them with different flowers as the season goes by. These are perfect for the terrace, too.
Dont forget, an old package you have relaxing around can easily be updated into a planter - perhaps an old irrigating can or a pickle gun barrel. All they need is some form of waterflow and drainage. Try one or two plant containers and see the difference they make!
Garden Fountains: Features add significant amounts of environment to any lawn setting. The types range from huge fountains created of rock or brown, to moderate and wonderful lawn water fall packages. Garden fountains have such a enjoyable, relaxing sound that their wonderful effect is immediate and fascinating.
Garden Sculptures: Garden sculpture is usually created of brown, stone, rock, wood, or material. Choose styles from cherubs and team to deer, bunnies and frogs. Garden statues can really develop your lawn concept, and are excellent fun to style with! Put them into a area, or display them freely as a primary factor of interest.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
A gothic hunt for heirloom daffodils
What am I doing wandering around a graveyard at dusk? In the little town of Ullapool in the north-west of Scotland. "I wonder if hell put this in the book, that the Donalds are mad, spend their evenings in cemeteries" muses my companion. We had been out for supper, a surprisingly good meal in a most unpromising place (reek of stale beer, plastic wood paneled walls, a bizarre painting of bare-breasted women in ancient Egyptian headresses holding a submarine). Passing a graveyard I jokingly suggested we go and look for old daffodils. "This is what we do all the time" said Duncan and Kate Donald, who collect heritage daffodil varieties and are always stopping by the side of the road, old gardens, and churchyards. So in we go. It is a spectacular location, overlooking the loch and the mountains. Kate bends over a clump, cautiously names it, bends over another one - she runs the stem through her fingers - the smoothness or otherwise of a stem can itself be a key to identification. Ornatus she suggests. Duncan says something about always keeping a spade in the back of the car. For one awful moment I wonder whether he is going to go and get it. I can already feel the eyes of the notoriously god-fearing folk of Ullapool upon us, suspecting us of digging up the Presbyterian dead.
Duncan and Kate Donald live and grow their plants in the incredible natural beauty of Loch Ewe on the north-west coast of Scotland. Rows of daffodil clumps are lined up around their cottage and an impressive wind turbine – a reminder that although the climate here is very mild, the wind is a constant. Kate had a childhood love of daffodils, which was rekindled by a scholarship year at Tresco Abbey Gardens on the Scilly Isles in the late 1970s. In 1983 she became RHS Daffodil Registrar, and because of this was asked by the National Trust for Scotland to create a National Collection of daffodils at Brodie Castle. Duncan adds “we got interested in making a collection of old daffodils in the 1980s... I was curator of the Chelsea Physic Garden in London... we had some bad storms then... a large tree blew over on top of a heritage daffodil collection... it really focussed our minds”.
Kate worked as RHS Daffodil Registrar between 1983 and 1986. “I was always more interested in the older varieties” she says, “old varieties which still come up in gardens decades after they have been planted shows they are survivors and therefore proven, unlike modern show varieties which are an unknown quantity”. “We made 1930-1935 our cut off point” explains Duncan, “why?... this was when Fortune derived varieties began to become important... we dont like orange cups, they all look like each other, we dont care for the Fortune look”. That leaves around 7,000 named varieties of which the Duncans now have 400 plus. He went on to explain how “we began to spend a lot of time looking at derelict cottage gardens, and then to ask garden owners for bulbs, and started to build up a reference collection.... we targeted garden owners through our various contacts, for example, people were so often very generous”.
In 1990 the couple moved to Scotland 1990, and as Duncan explains, “the children got used to the Easter holidays being daffodil time and endless garden visits”. Scottish gardens have often preserved the past better than English ones, and with the climate being a good one for daffodils, they have proved a fruitful territory for tracking down long-forgotten varieties. As time has moved on, and the daffodils have grown they are able to offer a number for sale – wide distribution is always aguarantee of survival. “We want to do for narcissus what Graham Stuart Thomas did for roses” says Duncan.
One particular property, Threave in Dumfries and Galloway, “has been a Rosetta Stone for us” says Duncan. The property had been owned by the Gordons, a family of Liverpool industrialists, who had used the castle as a summer residence. They had regularly bought bulbs over a long period and crucially kept good records. Additionally, in the 1960s an extensive set of notes were made of the old head gardeners knowledge. The Donalds were then in an excellent position to identify daffodils growing in the garden, so far they have named about ninety.
Over the years, the Donalds have worked out an effective methodology for identifying varieties in old gardens. They have systematically gone through old nursery catalogs, held by the RHSs Lindley Library in London, and assembled a database mapping the availability of varieties over time. “The collections for sale in the catalogs are particularly valuable” explains Duncan, “as these would have been bought in bulk and therefore most likely to still be around in gardens... if a garden is known to have been planted up at a particular date or between two dates, then it is possible to go to the catalogue database, and see what was available, narrowing down the possibilities... magazine articles (e.g. The Gardeners Chronicle) can be a useful source of information about when a particular garden was planted up if the garden itself has no record”. Gardens which do keep archives may sometimes contain invoices from nurseries or bulb dealers, listing varieties, or there may be old catalogues with names marked up.
There is no doubting the rigour of the Donalds approach. The changes in names resulting from the way daffodil classification systems have worked over the years and duplications in naming have resulted in much confusion. “We are very careful” says Duncan, “every clump is mapped, and has two aluminium labels with the name and accession number impressed onto them, one of which is buried with the bulbs”. He goes on to explain that flowers are systematically photographed, at different angles, and at different times – as flowers can change in appearance considerably over the period in which they are in flower. The eventual aim, apart from making as many varieties available for sale as possible, is a field guide to old daffodils, which will enable anyone with a garden which may have been planted up before the 1930s to identify their bulbs.
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| Sweetness - a 1939 Jonquil |
more to read on my Amazon Kindle page, including essays, interviews and Dig, Plant and Bitch, the world’s first Soap Opera for gardeners.
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