Monday, May 31, 2010

Exhausted

after too much mischief in the back yard ...

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(and by mischief I mean eating grass, digging for cat poop, and running around like maniacs)

Sunday, May 30, 2010

Front yard projects

When we bought our house it wasn't exactly dripping in curb appeal. Here's a reminder:

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(Looking back at these pics its hard to believe we wanted this house so badly!)

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Last year we put some plants in the flower bed, painted the front door and replaced the hardware, and switched out the light. While I was happy with the transformation I thought the front porch needed a little pizazz. I am definitely a fan of clutter-free spaces but it was looking a little plain, even for me.

I came across this marked down urn at Home Goods.

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It was deeply discounted because of some damage to the top. I figured I would just turn that part to the back and no one would notice.

The color was fine but since the light fixture is black I decided to spray paint the urn black to match. I probably could have just left it that dark brown color and no one would have noticed that it didn't match, but it would have bugged me every time I saw at it.

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I added a bushy fern and now our front porch is much more interesting.

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I love it!

Our next project involved tackling an eyesore that we had ignored since we moved into the house. You can just see it on the right of the driveway in that first pic at the top of the post. Here's a close-up:

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The previous owners put down landscape fabric, covered it with mulch and called it a day. The two California oak trees over there drop leaves year round so the area quickly filled up with leaves and has probably looked like that for years. Anytime we'd get a little rain weeds would start growing like crazy. We hated the area but we had no idea what to do about it. We thought about planting something but the ground was rock hard and filled with tree roots. Finally we decided to get some quotes to have concrete poured. When the quote came back we couldn't believe the price --- $2,700!! So that was the end of that idea!

Then one day we got the idea to fill the area with river rocks - I have no idea why we didn't think of it sooner! We placed our order and then quickly got to work cleaning out the area.

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While it didn't look great it looked a lot better. I don't know why we didn't at least do that right away - I'm a little embarrassed that we left it looking like such a mess for so long.

The next morning a HUGE pile of river rocks was dumped on our driveway. I was worried we hadn't ordered enough but when we saw the pile I realized we probably over-ordered - ooops!

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Most of the rocks were normal shaped but I was excited to find this heart-shaped one - I saved it to put somewhere inside the house :-)

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After a lot of hard work it now looks like this:

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So much better right?!

I just realized I don't have a shot of the whole front of our house but I'm sure you can imagine it looks much better than that first photo from when we first moved in!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

In the back yard

We've been doing a lot of work in our back yard this spring and things are coming together but its slow going. Instead of focusing on the big picture - which isn't looking so hot right now - the other night after work I grabbed my camera and looked at some of the little things.

The lavender is finally flowering. I wanted to plant english lavender but all I could find around here was the spanish variety.

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It has grown on me though (ha ha), and I love how the flowers look like they have bunny ears (or is that just me?).

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This is currently my favorite plant. I am generally not a fan of the color yellow but I like how it looks against green in gardens.

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Of course at this point the dogs had to come see what I was doing and try get into the photo.

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I have a feeling this plant isn't going to do well over the summer. The label said it was drought resistant but I've noticed that since the temperature has reached the 80s and the spring rain has stopped its looking a little raggedy. I can just imagine what it will look like when we start getting our 100 degree weather. Maybe it will surprise me though!

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We put in three small, puny, tiny, little trees. Eventually they will provide privacy and shade in our full sun backyard but right now they are just stalks that aren't even the height of the fence! The portions of new growth are soft and the prettiest green so at least they have that going for them.

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See those raggedy daisies? Pests are attacking those daisy bushes like there is no tomorrow! I like to use natural products in our garden but the downside is they aren't always as effective as the toxic stuff. The first product I tried didn't work at all so now I'm trying something else. Hopefully it works because this is not quite the look I was going for!

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The peach babies are doing well - actually I think they are already the size they were at maturity last year so I think we'll get a good crop this year (I hope!).

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I keep finding more twins I should have removed - oh well.

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I will probably do a separate post about our tomato garden but for now here are a few pics.

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I cant wait to pop the first tomato into my mouth - straight from the vine and warm from the sun.

I wanted to plant some purple coneflower this year but when I saw it priced at $12.99 per plant I changed my mind. I decided to try planting seeds and although they have taken ages to get going they are finally starting to resemble plants. I have no idea how they will do in our climate - hopefully well.

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So that's what's going on in our backyard - it definitely looks prettier in these zoomed in shots!