Our yard in Progress

If you are on Facebook, you know that Rollie has been working his tushie off in our yard.  At the end of May, we had our driveway widened and replaced our brick walkways with stamped and colored concrete.

To do this, Rollie had to dig out the garden that was there and we decided to completely revamp it.  We have since added day lillies next to the fence by the driveway and a beautiful metal sunflower.  I will get a picture tomorrow and add it to this post.  Enjoy!

Between the street and the huge tree

All of the irises went in here

You can see the wider driveway and part of the walk.

The yucca between the tree and the walk.

Backyard Projects

The sun cover ripped off of our swingset this winter, so we had to replace it. We bought a canvas painter's drop cloth and had the kids step in fabric paint and run all over it. We think that it came out very cute. This first picture is of the front.





This second picture is of the back. The kids thought that it was so much fun to step in plates of paint and run all over the cloth, with no repercussions! It probably won't last through next winter, but we still have the other half of the cloth to play with.





Our back deck has built in seats and we have these plain old green cushions for them. I have been trying to figure out what to do with them for a while now. We had a garage sale with a friend last summer and she had these spray pump fabric paints and stencils for sale. I got them and here is the result.




I did the hibiscus flower in a bright pink and orange with a clear glitter over it. I did half with orange as the main color and half with pink as the main color. I love the way that they turned out.






All of the cushions got a dragonfly on them as well. We did those with three colors and glitter. We did the whole dragonfly in a Caribbean blue with line green for the body and a little darker green for shading, and then, of course, clear glitter.

We are gearing up for Cracker's birthday party on Saturday, so the backyard is getting worked on.

My little gardeners

As promised . . . Here are Tea and Crackers watering the Rose of Sharon. Tea has fake colored hair extensions in - they are the bomb! Crackers has a dinosaur hat on. They both have on their gardening gloves that were a gift from Auntie Karen. They wear them whenever they are in the yard.





Here they are helping DH plant the new rose bush, sort of. They are waiting for their turn to water.








This is my view out the front door to the right just a little bit. That's the way to the driveway and also the view out the dining room window. We have a cute little porch right here with a nice bench to sit on and enjoy the outdoors.







This is to the left looking towards the neighbor's driveway. I believe that the two trees in the front yard have been here as long as (or close to it) as the house, so that would put them at about 40 years old.





This is slightly to the left of the front door, looking across the street.



Enjoy!

Gardening

DH pulled out a dead Scotch Broom and a dead rose bush yesterday, so we replaced some plantings today. Stidmama has inspired me with her gardening posts, so I thought that I would share our front yard.

This is the Rose of Sharon that lives where the broom lived before. We had three of these in the sideyard at the old house and I loved them and was sad to move away from them. There are a couple in the backyard here, but they are white and I really enjoy the purple ones. We will probably plant more along that front fence in the seasons to come.

This is one of our two Rhododendrons in the front yard. They are a vivid pink almost red in color, but I think that we are not going to get any blooms this year. They are looking peaked and they have buds, but everyone else's Rhodies are blooming, so I am fretful. There is one in front of, and one in back of this huge tree that is right in front of our dining room window.











This is our Clematis in the front yard. I love the deep purple of the flowers. I am sad about it though. As you can see, there is only one branch on this plant that is still alive. The rest is dead and it is planted in front of a fence and buried by the periwinkle and other assorted stuff planted in this corner. We will probably have to replace it next season and I am not sure how we are going to do that. We also have one in the backyard that is doing marginally better, but it is light pink/white.











This is a beautiful plant between a rose bush and some other shrub. I have no idea what it is, but it has pretty royal purple flowers. I think that this is the first year that we have seen it bloom since we moved in. I don't remember it from last year, but who knows. If you know what it is, would you mind telling me in the comments? Thanks!











This is our Forsythia that is by the front door. It is getting out of hand and we need to cut it back, but it is so pretty early in the season. I really need to get out in the front yard and clean up the beds, but gardening is not my passion. Nor is it DH's, so our yard always looks a little shabby. Oh well, it is ours and that's all that matters.

I hope you enjoy the pictures. I have another post coming with pics of the kids assisting in the planting today.