I was all set to go with the gray in the end, and then decided that it might be wise to try some big swatches against the garden. So I painted a panel with a sample patch of a color called “pencil point.” And while I was in the paint aisle I grabbed a couple of lighter colors to try for contrast, a pale faded green called “wasabi powder” and a light putty-gray-green called “organic field.” (How’s “organic field” for a color name that exploits today’s eco-consciousness?)

Here’s the final color test of panels laid up against the studio behind a blooming camellia and some emerging narcissus. I was hoping the plants would pop against the dark gray color, but was disappointed that they seemed to recede into the gray darkness. The lighter colors seemed to show off the plants better. Even the lightest gray-green didn’t seem to be too harsh in the way plants showed up against it.

I ended up liking them all, and after some conversations that went on for several days, John and I decided to use them all. Why choose?

This is the west side, the only side that will have plants against it, a combination of wasabi powder below and organic field above.

This is the south side, pencil point below, organic field above.

East side, pencil point and organic field. The greens don’t clash so badly in real life as they appear to in this photo taken in the tawny light right after sunrise.

…and finally the north, all organic field. (The door has just been painted gray, not shown here.)

Okay, it’s all almost a bit much. As Tim Gunn has said on Project Runway, “It’s a whole lotta look.” We’ll live with a while and use one of these colors for the fascia trim instead of the dark olive we used to tie it together with the main house in front. But there’s still a patio cover to rebuild, which will bring in another opportunity to tie things together.

Every time I get overwhelmed with what’s left to do I can pull out one of the early “before” pictures–this one of the south side. I’d call it progress.

And now back to things more botanical for a piece of trivia. The first photo has a shot of a young blooming Camellia sasanqua ‘Cleopatra.’ A little detail on this species of camellia versus the other commonly grown species, C. japonica, has stuck in my brain ever since I read it in Jake Hobson’s Niwaki: Pruning, Training and Shaping Trees the Japanese Way:

The most noticeable difference between the two lies in their flowers: C. sasanqua flowers drop petal by petal, while C. Japonica flowers drop off whole, which–as every Japanese person will tell you–made them unpopular among the samurai class, who were put off by the similarity they saw between the flowers and their own heads.

We’ve just started a project of our own on a little detached studio room behind the house. It began innocently enough with thoughts about replacing the patio cover that was starting its slow descent to the ground. (No piece of wood is safe in the land of termites.) Maybe two or three weekends of hard work to replace it. Yah, right.

As long as we were removing the patio that was attached to the room, we thought it would be a good time to redo the siding that has some spots that are failing. And as long as the walls were open, we really should insulate. And as long as we had things partly dissembled it made sense to replace the old single glazed windows and doors with better insulating ones. (The local power company provides rebates towards insulation, and one of the federal stimulus packages features 30% rebates on super-insulated replacement windows.) Now that the walls are starting to be opened, it’s clear that some of them are so gone that we’re having to re-frame them completely. So the little two weekend project has grown to two months or more. If it doesn’t rain.

Right: Just some of the spots we’re having to reframe.

With a fairly long-term project like this, we didn’t want to damage the plants in the middle of it. John’s assortment of epiphyllum cactus plants in pots needed shelter, and less portable plants planted in the raised shade bed around the pond wouldn’t be able to take much sun. The waterlilies in the pond would do okay with full sun, but the extra sun causes algae to grow and we didn’t want to have to battle pond scum as another house project.

So the weekend we took down the sheltering patio cover, up went these little portable cabanas and beach umbrellas. It looks like we’re having a big garden party, but it’s going to be a lot less relaxing the next couple of months.

This is my main workstation where I do my blogging, layered over by protective sheeting and open to the great outdoors. I suspect my blogging is going to take a big hit for a while as all my waking hours start to be consumed with the project.

And all this is happening during the prime planting season in Southern California. I have seeds to sow and plants to plant. I’m stressed. But with my university job being one of those impacted by state furloughs, I’ll be having lots of time to work on the project. I suppose that’s seeing the silver lining to the dark cloud that’s about to send lightning bolts in my general direction…