The Hot Porch - Part Three -- Future Plans
The third and final entry in the Hot Porch saga. Hot Porch is an on-going project and as autumn starts to roll in, I need to start thinking about the next season and how my porch tropical plants need a safe and warm place to hang out for the winter. This section also asks for more reader input than the rest. I have ideas but I find creativity everywhere and I look forward to hearing from my community about their ideas. And now the last part of Hot Porch, please enjoy.
Originally the plan was that this year would be our last year renting and we were going to be actively looking for a home to buy by 2021. Unfortunately, with the way the world is and the fact that Bryan and I both work in the suffering airline industry, we’ve adjusted our plans. We’re talking about another year or even two in our apartment, improving our savings, and making sure our careers are secure before purchasing a house.
This is one of the reasons why it took me so long to step up to decorating and gardening on hot porch. I didn’t see a long term value in putting in money on a place we intended to leave in a year. Now though, I want the fullest experience I can get from my apartment space. And looking around, I am not the only one.
When we first moved into the neighborhood we had maybe three neighbors that really put an effort into decorating their porch. The usual tiki lights, railing fairy lights, and occasional tomato plant was the general sum of most decorations. Most people only kept a chair or two and a small end table on their porches. Lower level apartments might have a little grill.
Bryan and I had the same idea. We kept a pair of camping fold out chairs on the porch and our Weber smoker. General use of the back porch was for watching the sunset and cooking. The most we put into “decorating” was I hung a magnetic screen up to let my dog go in and out without letting in bugs. And trust me, this close to the water and this being Texas, its a must. We did upgrade last year to a small wooden table and set of matching folding chairs but they aren’t very comfortable. They don’t take up much space on the porch and the table is really helpful when we’re cooking outdoors.
But with quarantine and more people staying at home and not traveling, the appeal of a comfortable escape right out your backdoor has become an art form around the block. I’ve seen balcony bars, resort quality bungalows, and restaurant worthy dining areas pop up all over my apartment complex. The need for safe, private outdoor space has blown up. The creativity of my neighborhood is outstanding.
Bryan is really starting to feel the need to make our apartment more of a “home” with pictures, decorations, and proper furniture. I hate to say that even in our 30’s we’ve been quality electronics and seating, but we haven’t put more than a college budget level into our other furniture, especially for organization and entertainment. We keep telling ourselves we want to wait for “the house” before we buy a nice table or a good liquor cabinet. But the truth is this is our home and we can do that now.
Part of that space is the porch. Plants are my thing but Bryan loves a place he can cook, work, and relax. The heat on the porch though really bothers him. He’s fairly sensitive to excessive heat and dehydration, so our porch isn’t always the safest space for him. This is disappointing for me because Bryan loves to use his smoker to cook and I love to eat. As well, we can’t always let Buddy out there either. Again, the heat is dangerous for a small dog and the concrete can burn his paws and belly. The other issue is Buddy gets very upset by people and dogs entering his “space” around the porch. We live in a quiet neighborhood with a lot of dog owners. Everyone knows where “those dogs” live that no one wants to walk by and we are worried we’re on that list.
Pests and Organization
There’s the concern for other animals being on our porch. Very recently Buddy almost died due to a poisonous animal bite while on the back porch. He went to into shock and had to be rushed to the hospital. At one point he started vomiting and even stopped breathing. We were very lucky he survived but the whole experience was incredibly draining on us.
The problem is we don’t know what caused the problem and now we are worried about him getting bit again or even one of us being hurt. We don’t believe it was a snake, though we’ve seen some on the porch before during rain storms and Buddy has cornered a few. We try to get rid of the wasps that make nests on the porch all the time, but the more we spray, the more show up. And of course there’s the usual ones like ants, spiders, and mosquito. All of these are things we want to avoid as much as possible.
Organizing the porch to prevent giving these critters a place to hide is probably our first step. Right now we do keep a pile of charcoal on the porch for grilling. It is kept to the size on the ground right now, the perfect place for something to hide. We probably need a raised chest to store these items properly and to make it easier to clean and inspect to prevent infestations or unwanted pests.
Flooring
The other part in the concrete. It is hot and reflects heat. Some of the plants love this, but my feet (I tend to walk around barefoot) and Buddy’s paws don’t appreciate this. I often put out an old blanket to walk on and to give Buddy something soft to lay on to prevent burning ourselves. This looks incredibly tacky. Further, it gets dirty quickly and tends to blow away if you forget about it or leave it out overnight. Again, it is also a welcome hiding spot for bugs.
The obvious choice is an outdoor area rug. I am not a big fan of rugs on the back porch. You need to be careful about getting the right size and it feels like you can never find it in the right size. You either end up with too much or too little to cover the porch. Overtime these rugs fade or just start to look dirty and ragged. I also find most of them to be hideous. Bryan also worries about a rug being a fire hazard while using the grill. So area rugs are pretty much out.
Our idea is clip in flooring. They can be cut to size, are fairly easy and cheap, and come in all different styles. Bryan is partial to AstroTurf while I am more into the idea of cedar planks. Our compromise is both. Artificial grass around the dining and open spaces where the dog could lay down and then the cedar planks on the walk way like a garden path. These clip in flooring are also raised and have openings underneath of them so you can house them down to clean them and water will drain away.
This will be a project that’s probably on hold until temperatures drop. At this time its still well into the 100’s during the day and not safe to spend a lot of time outside working on the concrete.
Plants
The next step is organizing the placement of the plants. At this time we have 5 plumeria, a crab claw, a yucca, and sometimes the Elephant Ear all out on the porch. They are all over the place with no real design, just lined up to get sunshine or placed up on the table. I need to find a better arrangement that give us room to move around and optimize the space. Right now it seems haphazard and cluttered.
The goal is probably either a corner plant stand, free hanging railing pots, and rolling plant platforms. Right now the Spineless Yucca is on a rolling platform due to his weight. I can’t move him reliably without that stand. The Heliconia is sitting next to the grill in a humidity tray but probably needs to be on a roller so we can move it safely when we are grilling. The smaller plumeria and the cuttings are grouped together on the table, along with the Elephant Ear when I bring it outside, which doesn’t give us any space to eat at the table or work outdoors since we’re now a work-from-home couple. As well, all the plants being lined up means Buddy spends a lot of time sniffing at them and running around them and takes away from his space outdoors, which isn’t fair.
Since these plants will more than likely be coming indoors for overwintering in the next 2-3 months, I am putting this project on hold until Spring. That gives me plenty of time to budget and source the materials I need to organize the plant space.
Overall, I do expect to end up with more plants outdoors but that will be in the Spring-Summer season. With my habits, it will probably be more plumeria but I wouldn’t mind finding myself a banana tree or some sort of manageable palm tree.
Lighting
When we moved in the porch had 1 functioning outdoor light that could not be turned off. It attracted a lot of bugs and lizards. It was placed right next to the door, so you couldn’t open the backdoor without inviting in all the bugs. As well, because it never turned off, it shined right into the master bedroom all night long. So when it burned out, Bryan and I never had it replaced.
Instead we put up from very soft, very small solar lights along the porch railing. These provide some atmosphere to our porch but are too low level to attract bugs or disturb us while we’re sleeping. This also means they are too dim to see anything on the porch at night. Like I discussed before, we’ve had some animal callers to the porch before that you don’t want to meet in the dark.
Thankfully, lighting is kind of a big deal for Bryan. He loves fun, color changing lighting, especially if you can control it from your phone. Right now we are working on finding the right type of lighting to put on the back porch. That will probably be the first big project we put in and I expect we’ll do that within the next month as we come into our vacation time.
Seating
As I mentioned, we do have a table and chairs outside right now but the chairs are not meeting expectations. First off, they are wobbly and starting to breakdown already. They were not really designed to hold much weight and Bryan and I are not small people.
This has been Bryan’s biggest regret for outdoors. He wants to find comfortable seating so he can really soak in the outdoor space. It hasn’t been easy to find in the pandemic since most stores won’t let you test chairs right now, so finding out the sturdiness and comfort of a chair is near impossible. Further, we need to figure out a budget for chairs. Good chair don’t come cheap, and well-built even less so.
We need to start setting aside the money for this purchase and really invest. I foresee this being a late this year or even Spring of next year project. Bryan will be spearheading the seating project as it is his passion project along with the lighting.
We both agree we like the size and style of the table, so that will remain. No changes to come at this time for that piece.
Shading
This is a key must that we hadn’t originally thought about when talking about improving our space. To be honest, it only came up as an idea between us in the past month. I mentioned the idea of adding privacy screening to the porch to cut back on the concrete heat and maybe giving Buddy a sense of separation from other dogs so he’d be less inclined to go crazy when they walked by. We’ve noticed he whines when he’s inside the house and sees the other dogs go by. Even being behind the mosquito netting, he has a similar low level whining response but when he get out on to the porch, he goes into a full bark, shaking, and lunging mode. This is very weird because Buddy is a good dog and socialized. He attends doggy daycare and regularly goes to the park. We can only figure that its because these are all neutral areas and this is home territory. We want Buddy to be able to go outside and not feel stressed by the other dogs and we definitely don’t want people walking by or living around us to think of us as the people with “that dog”.
Bryan, much like Buddy, enjoys a sense of privacy and separation from our neighbors so he jumped at the idea of a privacy screen immediately. He went to the internet and Pinterest to start building ideas. His first idea was the most intriguing, the hardest to maintain, and the most costly. Bryan wanted to create a living screen in the form of a vine wall. I actually loved this idea. I thought this would actually be a pretty doable idea with some Morning Glories, or Ivy, or even some simple Potato Vine, especially if we alternated between some green and purple. Further discussion though led us to think about how we’d have to replant the wall every year, the pests it might attract, and landscapers.
Since we live in an apartment building, we can only container grow. Despite the fact that our plants are in containers and behind the bars of our porch, our landscapers have on occasion weed whacked a few leaves off of plants that were going over the bars. I don’t blame them, they had to work quickly and the apartment owners pay them to keep the in-ground sprinklers clear. We don’t write their paychecks, directly at least, so they aren’t as obligated to avoid an accidental buzz. I’ve noticed they do try to b delicate but accidents happen. In the same thought, a vine with fine stems that close to the ground are just asking for an accidental brush with the weed whacker and there goes our money down the drain.
Bryan, bless his heart, then suggested those fake plant vines you see in the craft store. I understand where he’s coming from with that idea, and it’s not the worst. He definitely thought it out, suggesting we add soft fairy lights to it like our solar ones we already have on the railings. And to be honest, at night, this would look amazing. During the day, with being on the bottom floor and close up, everyone is going to see how fake they are and when they start to get dirty, it is going to look horrible. Maybe on the 2nd or 3rd floors, where there isn’t sprinklers and lawn mowers throwing back dirt and mud on to them and people can’t get up close, this idea will really work. I’m putting that one in my back pocket for another time and place.
So we needed an alternative. Something that wouldn’t fade out under harsh sun. Something that could handle the weather and time. Something that was meant to block the sun and shade the ground to cool it off on even hot, hot days.
The answer was pool privacy walls. Those vinyl, canvas looking privacy screens hotels put up around their pools. They block UV rays, are neutral in color, easy to maintain and clean, and surprisingly affordable. They come in all sizes and heights and can be installed by homeowners in a day. They aren’t as charming and creative as growing you own privacy wall but they are designed for our literal needs.
We’ve already started measuring the porch and shopping around for our privacy screen. I figure by mid-October we’ll have that installed.
Further, we’ve also decided along with the lower privacy screen, we’ll be installing a crank lowered screen on our porch. That way, if we feel the need to, we can shut the upper and lower parts of the porch to enjoy some refreshing shade on our porch and a real sense of privacy. The upper privacy screen is a bit more time consuming with installation and costly. Bryan is currently working on physical therapy for an ankle/foot injury and I am only one body, so this may take some time or a couple beers to the right friends to get accomplished. I’m going to hold off on putting a goal date on this one until I figure out more dimensions, installation, and pricing on this project.
And that’s about it for now. The key goals are privacy, comfort, and practicality. We’re not even going to discuss decorations at this moment. We want the space first, looks second.
I’m all ears for people that have converted their own porches, especially hot porches, into workable living spaces on a budget. I’m a crafty gal but I sometimes have trouble seeing the forest through the trees, if you know what I mean.
Thanks again for dropping by the garden. Let’s keep growing together.
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