How My Garden Grows (in the heat)

Please excuse the glare, it's been a little sunny here.

So, everything has been growing like crazy, although with the heat they seem to have slowed down a bit.

The daylillies are blooming!

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And so are the daisies!! Hard to believe they were teeny-tiny just a couple months ago.

On another note, don't you hate it when your nail gets a tear in it and you have to cut it off?? Just when my nails were looking nice...

At least I won't be missing many outdoor activities this weekend when I'm inside doing my nails.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

How My Garden Grows: An Update

This was my garden a little over a month ago...

And this is it now...

Things are finally starting to grow and get fuller.

My calla lillies have come up and are blooming!

My blue pin-cushion flowers were kind of small...

And now they are big!

The paprika yarrow has just exploded and is huge!

The peach tree is coming along, although we only have 1 peach on it for this year. My daisies, purple coneflowers, and the chinese orchids are still left to bloom, so there's still more to come!

Happy Tuesday!

My Garden, part deux

We spent Sunday working in our yard, and I have some more finished pictures of my flowerbed to show. We still need to add mulch, but for the most part, it's done.
Now it's just time for these plants to grow!

This first picture is of our tiny apple tree (that's still hanging on, after nearly dying each of the last 2 years). From the left of the picture is some Stonecrop (a small, low, groundcover), my pomegranate bush, and 2 perenial pin-cushion flowers. In front of the tree and to the right are 4 strawberry plants, and a coral autumn sage bush. The decorative rocks came from my parents' place in Granbury - lots of rocks there!



This view is to the left of the apple tree. From the right side of the photo we have Paprika Yarrow surrounding another rock, an Indian Hawthorne bush, blue Veronica (a perenial with little blue flowers), a Texas Sage bush, a Calla Lilly plant (pink), an orange Day Lily, another Indian Hawthorne bush, another rock, and my Japanese Maple with purple clover and a Holly Fern underneath.

It all seems so small and sparse right now - I'm looking forward to everything growing and blooming! The Pomegranate bush blooms with these beautiful orange flowers, and the Texas Sage with small purple flowers!

I'll be sure to post more once it all starts blooming and filling in.

April showers

Heeeellllloooooo........
In case anyone is wondering - busy work, no internet at home, sick, sick, planting flowerbeds, adopting out foster puppies, making curtains..... whew!

I wanted to share some pictures of my still not quite done flowerbed! I have been wanting this for 2 years now, and FINALLY we are getting it in. I have had a couple of bushes still in the nursery pots for over a year!! Basically, I had some things I wanted to transplant to a sunny locale, plus looking at a graying fence all the time is boring.
So the first step, after marking where you want the bed to be is to rent a tiller and chop up the ground and all the grass. This is not as easy as it may sound. It is hard, as the tiller is jerky and vibrate-y, and after a while you loose feeling in your hands. I highly recommend having a husband, brother, dad, male friend, or hiring out the task to a very strong person. I thought I could have done it myself.... HA! Right.
So, this is after step one:

After you clean out the bed somewhat, removing all the dead chopped up grass bits, we added a layer of composted leaves. We also added/put in the green metal edging that you can shape. We had just spent about 30 minutes trying to get rid of the grass, and I don't want it coming back. At least not in my flower bed.

Now comes the fun part of planting things! I got a great deal on a Japanese Maple tree at Home Depot - very excited about that. I started with planting the bigger things that I knew where I wanted them to go. Since then, I've also transplanted 2 larger bushes. I'm now left with a few smaller things to plant, and mulch.

I'm hopeful that I can get this all finished up this weekend - that is if we can stay healthy!! But once I do, I'll share more photos!

I've also been busy making curtains for our bedroom! Easy no-sew kind. I finally found some fabric that I liked, and that was within our budget. You can go check them out at Elizabeth Anne Designs.

Hope everyone is doing well!

The signs of spring

My camelia bush is finally starting to bloom!

Outdoor living

On beautiful days like this, where it's sunny and about 70 perfect degrees outside, with the daffodils starting to come up, I start itching to get outside!

I'm what I would call a "fair-weather" gardener. Just like a fair-weather friend, I really only like to garden when it's like this. Mostly, I love to create. It's the upkeep, while it's 100 degrees out, that's not so fun.
This year I'd really like to focus on our back yard and porch. Right now it's not very pretty. There's some grass that's grown into the monkey grass that needs to be weeded, and there are patches in the monkey grass that need to be filled. Add to that the weeds in the yard, the 3 bushes that need to be transplanted to a sunnier location, and a couple bushes still in plastic pots... well, you get the idea.
But, it's always fun to look and lust and get ideas, so I've pulled a few images that inspire me. A few that I wouldn't mind having out my back door (especially the second one).



Is anyone else starting to gear up and tackle their yard or porch area??

*above pictures of outdoor spaces from Domino!