A Cheery Little Deck

I had some fun yesterday getting our deck spruced up.  I purchased new plants, swept and rearranged.  Definitely a lot more cheery and inviting!

I can't wait to cook with the rosemary and basil.  When planting my new plants I added some new potting soil to the containers to give them a boost.

I typically grow these in containers all summer long. This year I hope I can transplant the rosemary at the end of the season.  I like to change up my colors each year.  This year we are going with red and blue.

By rearranging the pots and keeping them neat and tidy, it looks a lot more inviting.  I like to keep this ivy going in my larger pots.  It last from year to year and gives a more mature look at the beginning of the season.

Don't you want to come over and visit?  You are welcome anytime!

Covering A Chain Length Fence With Vines

Rudy and I have a section of our chain length fence that we need to camouflage.  We are putting in new fencing for part of the yard but leaving our chain length fence intact. 

We are going to start our new fence where our neighbors fence stops but as you can see we have a section of chain length that will need to be spruced up.

Our thought is that we could cover the fence with vines.  We currently have ivy that would work.  I took some of the longer pieces and wrapped it around the fencing to encourage it to grow.

I am thinking though it may look better to use prettier vines.  I found an article on DoItYourself.com listing other things you can use such as black eyed Susans which I love.

www.hear.org

And Cardinal Climber...



New England Folk Network

And I do love jasmine vines which I bought recently.  So we shall see.  I think our new fence will be in by the end of June most likely.  All depends on when we can get the time to put it in.

A Rose By Any Other Name

Here is what my dining room looked like last night when I came home from work...a little cluttered but something caught my eye.  Can you see what it is?

Do you see that beautiful rose on top of my china cabinet? My neighbor a couple of houses down has these wonderful pink roses and brought one to me on Sunday. When she gave it to me it was a closed bud - not tightly closed, but closed. Then last night I saw this!

I think I even exclaimed "oh my goodness!!!!" And ran over to it. Rudy thought something had happened I was going on so about it. I have never had a rose open up like this - it was so refreshing to see. Especially after a couple of days of traveling, bumpy flights and hanging out in airports. I think it is called a Honey Perfume when I did a little research on types of roses.

This makes me wonder if roses aren't something we should think about adding to our landscape plan...hmmm.  Are they hard to grow?  Anyone with experience care to share?

Weekend Yard Updates

I used to have a thing I did where everyday I thought of three positive things that happened right before my prayers.  It was amazing how much better I felt and able to clear my mind when gratitude was what I was thinking about rather than the daily drivel that can fill your brain before falling asleep.

Today I can already thing of three things.  1.  Reed woke up early so I got to feed him and get him to school before my flight.  2.  Mondays are usually crazy at the airport but since I booked an 8:30 flight today I sailed right through check in.  3.  I saw that a neighbor has free monkey grass!  Yeah - free plants!  Now, we know what to put around the patio.

But on to the yard and our weekend.  The yard will be done in baby steps which I think will keep it more manageable and cost effective.  Even though the timing of the work will be done hodge podge, the finished product will not thanks to our overall garden plan.

Remember this stark wall at the side of our house?

Rudy transplanted the trees in our front planters to this wall.  They should grow to be 6 feet tall which will be perfect along with some other plantings.

Here is what our planter looks like now - love the summery colors.  They look a little leggy now but hoping they grow in nicely.

Rudy and Reed got to enjoy our back yard!

And Monkey reaaaaalllllleeeeeee wanted the appetizers I put out for Rudy's sister and her family for dinner on Friday night!  Good thing she is too little to get to it!



We also had our neighborhood wide yard sale this weekend which I coordinated.  More on how to coordinate that later.  And my mother-in-law came over on Sunday to watch Reed so I could get some work done for this trip and run some errands.  Rudy and I made shrimp and grits last night which was AWESOME.  So glad summer is around the corner.  All in all, this weekend was great! 

Backyard Redo - Plant Selection

Happy 7 months to Reed! Yay!

On to the post...Rudy and I are well on our way of getting our yard in shape.  Rudy transplanted a bunch of ground cover, I have planted some flowers and we have put together our plan for the back yard.  We have a need for some privacy plantings as well as flowering shrubs.  After doing some research at our local home improvement store we came up with the following plants.  Our yard is very shady so we had to stick with plants that had flexible light requirements or preferred shade or part shade.

Privacy "fence" - Emerald Green Arborvitae

Layered with several flowering shrubs like this Indian Hawthorne

And this Gardenia

And some Rhododendrons

I love Rhododendrons...you can just feel the coolness that they bring to the air as you get near them.  They cover the landscape in the mountains of North Carolina nestled at the foot of trees and the beauty is so calming.

I do need to identify some smaller shrubs to plant around our patio.  I like Juniper Shrubs like this one but they need more sun then our back yard will have.



So I am going to keep thinking on this one...perhaps there is another plant similar in look that can be used in part shade yards.

First we are going to put in our fencing and then get going on the plantings.  So excited!

It's Going To Be A Romantic Summer

As dorky as it sounds, one of the most romantic things I like to do with my husband is to work a project together.   Especially one outside.  So I think this is going to be a very romantic summer because we have a lot of work to do!

As I mentioned on Friday, I am in the planning stages of getting a decent yard.  I am using this awesome resource from Iowa State University.  I mapped out our property this weekend using the most technical of measuring devices I could find.

i.e. my foot + a little bit = a foot

Then I walked around my yard to get our measurements.  I am sure I looked funny to people driving by!

Here are some of my drawings of the property and an electronic version I created.

Well the computer version didn't translate well...but you get the idea of what you can do. 

We have a lot of ideas for our back yard...here is what I am thinking so far...

Keeping the back by the fence mostly natural and the perimeter of the yard natural so we have less to maintain.  We will keep a grassy area in the middle.  We would love to put in a tree swing for little Reed.

This is the side bed in our front yard.  The ground cover is a bit out of control.  I want to transplant it all to the side and plant a few more shrubs.  Put down dark mulch and make it look neat and tidy.

Here is the side which is a huge drainage area for our house.  Under the soil is a french drain we dug and put in ourselves with the help of some awesome neighbors.  I want this to be covered completely in ground cover to help prevent soil run off.

Here is the other side of our house.  We need to add more plantings to finish it off and conceal that stark white wall.

Here is the view looking back to the house.  See that thing growing at the bottom of the picture?  That is bamboo...argh!  Need to go through and do some chopping and spraying with grass killer.  It is a never ending battle with bamboo.

See the creek down on the bottom right of this picture?  That is a pretty nice view.  I would like to put in plantings in such a way to hide the house behind us but keep that view in tact.

There is a lot to do and to think about...fencing, some pathways, exactly what plants to pick.  But Rudy is on board and we will work on this together this summer.  Can't wait to show the progress as we go along!

Garden Dreaming/Planning

Now that our house is pretty much set, I am setting my sights on the outside of our house.  The thing is that I am not a garden person...I want to be so badly!  But I have a hard time keeping things growing or even knowing where to start.  This is what the front of our house looks like now...

It is kind of plain jane...which isn't a bad thing necessarily but we need a little love.  Anything in my life that I have done well has been because of interest, enthusiasm, education and practice.  So here I go...

Introducing:  Project Decent Yard

Here are some pics of gardens I like.  I love black eyed susans.  And I love the fullness of the plantings here.

umn.edu

And again the fullness in this one and the terrace.

mosaicgardens.wordpress.com

lyndakelly.webs.com

I have the interest and enthusiasm.  Now for the education.  I found this great resource from Iowa State University for building your landscape plan.  Here are some of the steps they lead you through.   

I like how they keep it basic and give you examples of plantings.  It is a step by step workbook that is free and by the end of it you will have your own plan for a landscape.  I am a very visual person but also pretty type A when setting a goal, establishing milestones, timeline, etc.  So this speaks to me in that way.  Of course this will be something to work on probably all summer long so I will keep you posted on my progress!

What Your Front Door Says About You

Have you ever wanted what your front door says about you?  I will admit that the outside of my house doesn’t get as much attention from me as the inside.  You can bet that I will not have a lot of posts on gardening or lawn care.  Believe me I have tried.  Getting grass to grow was my personal challenge in 2008, 2009 and 2010.  In 2011 we hired someone and it looks much better.  I also have a hard time keeping shrubs alive but can’t kill bamboo or ivy – go figure.  But I do want our home to look good.   It is very frustrating!

Recently I have done some minor updates to improve the look of our front door and stoop.  I saw a study that an improved front door increased the perceived value of the home by $9,000.  Crazy huh?  But it makes sense since the front door is almost like the handshake of your home.  First impressions count!

Here is our house:

We have a screen door that is a deep burgundy color.  If I were to pick out new a storm door, I would get something wooden with an architectural feature.  But our current door is in perfect working order and isn’t all that old.  So I needed to work with what we had rather than buying new.  Our front door was black which tied in to the black shutters.  I decided to paint the door to match the storm door to give it a more unified look.  I repositioned the mailbox and house numbers. 

I also planed these shrubs in the planters.  I don’t think you can go wrong with symmetry on a stoop.

 My goal is to keep these guys through March or April.  I am hosting a shower for my cousin on February 11th.  If they can stay alive through then I will be happy.  Then once spring comes, I want to plant them along the side of the house to fill in this random area where we created a storage room where there was an open area under our house. 

I think originally this was supposed to be a screen porch maybe, I am not sure.  But since we have a deck off of the back, we never really used that area. 

Currently these are only $10 from Home Depot and they will grow up to 6 feet tall.  Pretty good deal for a tree if you can keep it alive!  It needs a lot of sun so it would not work in our back yard.

 There is a lot we can do with the outside of our house…paint it all one color?  We have been debating that one for awhile now.  Hopefully there will be even more “afters” for our house and yard!  We will just need to bring in some reinforcements to do it.  Rudy and I are lucky to have wonderful neighbors and friends who are talented in this arena!