The long and winding road

to making a temporary shelving unit out of materials I already have, for  plants, this winter, in the blue room upstairs (I found out last winter that once the maple tree's leaves have dropped, the light is EXCELLENT for plants.)

Is it my convoluted brain? Is it the 10 years I spent in the DEQ Planning Unit, despite the fact that I never had any course work in Planning (mostly biology and other sciences)? Anyway, every damn thing I want to do seems to have its own House That Jack Built complications.

OK, I want to dig up several begonias, a couple of the geraniums, the ivies, the little white and green leaved thing in the hanging pots, and also plant some free Wandering Jew vines I got via craigslist, and put them in pots to over-winter in the Blue Room. But there would be too many to just put on the sewing table like I did last winter. So: a temporary shelving unit.  I've procrastinated for weeks. Today, it turned out, was the day. But I had to Plan, first. So:

1. Draw up a plan for the unit, using materials I already have.

2. Build the unit, assemble it in place upstairs.

3. In the garage, assemble the plant pots: river rock in the bottom, a layer of gravel, and half the amount of potting soil (the rest to be sprinkled in once the plants are planted).

4. Pot up the plants and put them in a protected spot on the back patio. when the maple leaves have fallen, move the plants to the Blue Room for the winter.

Also, I need to divide the irises and replant them in bare spaces in the flower beds, and elsewhere depending on how many there are.  So, after potting up the first set:

5. Cut off iris leaves to about 6" high. Dig up the corms, cut apart and replant both in present iris bed and the spaces where the potted plants were before.

6. Also: Cut off Hosta flower stalks and leaves to about 6" high for the winter.

OK, so I had a Plan! I went out into the garage to commence to begin. The first thing I discovered was that I should have gone out there and checked my *actual* wood inventory instead of thinking I knew what I had. BIG SIGH. The plan called for 8" wide boards. I only had 3 1/2" wide boards - and I don't have the tools to butt boards together to make wider planks. So, a trip to Lowe's was added to my round of errands.

So much for using what I have. On the bright side, though, I could have the guy cut the planks for me, saving me quite a bit of work. There will still be some sawing to do but the lumber guy did help a lot. 

But as always, my ideas of what I could get done today were totally unrealistic. I wonder why I persist in doing that. Oh well, back into the fray tomorrow!