Livin' la Vida Roko

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Hot Child in the City turns Shady Lady

We're watering the plants of our neighbor, Harley, while he's fishing in Alaska. We went over last night and as we were finishing, Ken looked up and saw his new 2nd floor deck and arbor covering it.

Ken: "Wow, that looks nice. Would you ever be interested in something like that for our back deck?"
Lisa: "Seriously?! I would love that. I've been dreaming about something like that but I thought you wouldn't want it because it would interfere with the structure of the house."
Ken: "Not at all. When would you like it?"


Oh my goodness. This has been my dream ever since we moved in. Our deck off the kitchen is raised off the ground about 5-6 feet, so it feels a little exposed. Dave and Kim are planting bamboo to provide more of a screen on the west side, but it will take a while until it gets established. Plus, it gets HOT on that deck in the summer. From noon until about 9 (sun sets here around 9:30 in the summer), it can be almost too hot to use. Sad since eating outside makes me happy. (This summer has been pretty pleasant, but the last two weren't). Anyway, I am excited. Ken and I discussed plans a bit last night. We'll probably start on it in October or so -- after the waterproofing, the garage and the fence -- but before next summer hits. And probably before January -- when the grapevine I'll be transplanting is dormant. Damn, I'll have moved that thing four times in a little over three years. Did I mention it's producing grapes this year though? Exciting. So I am super happy imagining what is to come. And since the grapevine is deciduous, that means shade in the summer and sun in the winter. Here are some pictures I found online of what it may look like...

Example of an arbor over a raised deck, covered with vines:


Example of how much space a grapevine can cover while still being able to walk underneath:


Example of what the grapevine would look like in the summer from the deck looking up:


[EDIT: Turns out Taryn has exactly what we want. Here are a few pics of her arbor this summer]:






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1 Comments:

At 8:14 PM, Blogger Taryn said...

We have a grape arbor over our back deck. It is completely shaded and has a million grapes on it. Our passion flower is growing up one side of it too, so it's like a little room in there. I'll send you some pics.

 

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