Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Side Yard Vines




If you haven't noticed, I have rarely done posts on our poor, pathetic backyard. Well, there are several reasons for this, 1. There is SO much to do, we don't know where to start, 2. Our vision is a bit pricey, and 3. We love our front yard so much we just spend a lot of time out there. Well, I have had enough of the neglect. Even though I'm 22 weeks pregnant I can do some sprucing.

I found two kinds of plants that I love and noticed seem to do well in our neighborhood: lavender and siskiyou pink gaura. They love sun, so I lined a few of them along our fence to turn the barren landscape into something a bit more inviting.



These siskiyou pink gaura's will one day look like this:



Today they look more like this....again, patience, one day they will be beautiful.
With those 3 planted, I asked John to do the heavy lifting and get our beautiful, Passion Flower Vines planted along the fence. Easy enough right?

Here's a close up of the Passion Flower.



Not so easy, turns out. Our french drain pipe runs along the whole side fence. Doh! We wanted to plant these vines here to give us something pretty to look at, other than our neighbor's house, when standing at our kitchen sink or looking out our large kitchen window. Well, John came up with a great idea that allowed us to plant our vines.

He built planter boxes for them to place along the fence. Jack, as always, was right by his side to "help".





Daddy lets Jack use the drill all by himself :)


John added a back so as not to rot out the fence, and a bottom so that the roots don't harm the drain pipe. This is what we ended up with.

Once we attached the trellis we wove the vines up to the latticed topped fence.


After a solid 24 hours in the ground, this is how beautiful the flowers looked this morning.
Grow vines grow! I cannot wait to see how beautiful all our plants will be by next year. Happy planting!

Monday, September 12, 2011

Front Yard Facelift

Welcome to the new, spruced up version of our front yard. I've added a new welcome mat, I've decided that those brown grassy type ones are less than ideal for hardwood floor entries. I was always sweeping up the grassy bits inside. So I opted for this one made from recycled plastic and rubber, $12 at Kohl's.
I made a little flare for the front door, still non the hunt for a fun little bit of ribbon to add to the bottom left, but looks fine for now.

And I finally committed to plants in the front yard area. More hydrangeas and ferns. I think they'll look great as they grow and gain some height. Love the way it looks.


Kind of a boring shot, but thinking that they'll look great once they mature a bit. I noticed that people always plant too closely and everything gets crowded. I spaced them with enough room to mature and with the idea in mind that I can always plant some annuals to brighten things up. Have a great week!