The Great Outdoors

We spent the majority of our Memorial Day weekend in the great outdoors!  It wasn't as wonderful as it sounds, since the temps were in the 90's and we were weeding, mulching, & planting in the hot sun.  Here are a few quick pictures of our front yard spruce up...

We added this little bed next to the newer driveway extension.  The tree should get about 15 feet tall.  Next year I'll probably add some lillies here too, since it will likely be a while before the tree grows quite that tall.

New mulch and some purple petunias on the other side of the house...

More annuals & mulch...

 Maybe next year I'll get a hanging basket for our lamp post.

So, we can officially check two things off the Summer Project List.  Have you crossed anything off the list yet?  I'm not getting too excited since we usually have a strong start & quickly fizzle out of steam for the rest of the projects!

Landscaping Retained!

So, I finally convinced my husband to build a small retaining wall around our front landscaping!  Yay!  I gave you this sneak peak a few days ago:

And, here is a bigger view of it:

I can't really tell you how he did it, since I wasn't able to help on the two days he worked on it.  The basic steps were to dig out the area & add some sand to level the blocks.  Once they were all in place, he added tiny pea gravel to help with drainage & then filled it with topsoil until it was level with the rest of the ground.

Of course, once the new wall was in, we had to add some additional landscaping & mulch to spruce it up even more!

We kept the boxwoods in their place and added some type of evergreen shrubs in front of them.  We also moved our hostas around.  Then we added:

a Green Lace Leaf Japanese Maple, red Coleus, some sort of petunia, and...

some yellow Tickseed.  (I think these are deer resistant!  Wahoo!)

With the left side looking so good, I couldn't just leave the right side of our door looking sloppy, so I we again moved & added some plants.

We added some adorable, red Poppies...

and some beautiful Dianthus.

We moved our boxwoods to the back and moved both our hostas & barberry bushes into triangle shapes to create the look below:

And now here's a picture of the whole house:

{Trying to block the sun out of the picture!}

And, just in case you forgot what it looked like before:

{Before}

{After}

Finally, one thing completely crossed off the Summer Project List!  How are your summer projects coming along?

Wendy

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The Urn Takes a Turn (for the better...)

I bought these two urns for $20 each at Big Lots a few months ago.

They sat empty on the front porch until it warmed up enough to add some plants to them.  In the mean time, my kids & the neighbor kids kept moving them around, knocking them over, & adding mud, grass, & pieces of our bushes to the inside of them.  I could stand it no longer!  I was so tired of having to move them around multiple times per day!  I finally decided to add some plants, so the urns weren't as movable.

My intention was to plant rounded boxwoods in these containers, so they would remain green year round.  But, as luck would have it, I couldn't find any boxwoods that were the size, shape, or price that met my needs. 

After a couple of days of thinking about it, I decided to buy two evergreens that were pruned into a spiral shape.  That plan changed again when I realized they were $30 a piece, and I wasn't sure if they would survive in my container!  I realized though, that for half the price, I could buy the same, un-pruned tree and prune it myself.  So, I decided to go for it!  I stuck the trees in my cart & away we went.

I am extremely indecisive, so of course I had second thoughts & decided to put those trees back & get some of the smaller, cheaper boxwoods to prune myself!  As I was looking at the boxwoods, I saw the same unpruned evergreen trees crammed between the bushes & a rack of flowers.  They were smaller & only about $7.  I felt WAY more comfortable spending that amount of money!  Finally, something made the cut!

So, to make a short story long, here is the final product:

 

I'll have to work up the nerve to prune these, but I think they work fine for now!  I added some petunias and ivy to give it a little more somethin', somethin'.

Here's the front stoop now:

I really tried to wait until all the water dried up, but patience is not one of my strengths!

So, what's planted in your pots?  I'd love some more ideas!

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