Flowers Make Everything Prettier

I have an announcement to make.... (drumroll please)

WE NO LONGER HAVE THE UGLIEST YARD ON THE BLOCK!!!!

This is what the house looked like on moving day:

And with the exception of the pesky hostas that sprouted everywhere the following spring it has remained largely unchanged.

As much as I love designing anything having to do with the inside of the house, I am left utterly clueless when it comes to landscape design. The best strategy I've got is "flowers are pretty", but with all the hostas, there was no where to put them. We have also neglected mulch for the last three years (yes three!) since you couldn't even seen the flowerbeds through the folliage.

Finally, after putting my back into digging up the majority of the most bothersome hostas this spring, when the ground was still soft with rain and before they got extra leafy, I have real flower beds again. Check them out.

On a $100 budget I bought 8 bags of much needed mulch, 2 plastic planters, a flat full of light and dark pink inpatients, and one coleus and mini petunia for each pot. Plus a couple of tomato plants since I can't seem to get through a growing season without hoping that this year, they'll be successful. I even ended up with $20 left over!

What a difference. It makes me so happy I look out the window randomly at my pretty pink flowers. This summer, I love my yard!

Welcome Spring... I Think

I love warm weather, so any excuse to shed winter coats and multiple layers definitely makes me smile and I'm so happy to smell spring in the air. One of the unfortunate downfalls of spring, however, is making me realize something I've pushed out of my head for three whole months; how awful my yard looks! I know I've complained about hostas before, and really, I'm giving them a bad rap, because they're not all that horrible. I'm just up to my ears in them since the last people to own my house seemed to think they were the be-all end-all of landscaping and put them everywhere. Last year I dug out 8 enormous ones that were smothering my AC unit. The first year we moved in I took out 5 or so that were planted around a dead tree. Now, over three years since moving in, I'm at it once again, hoping that I've started early enough to deal with the rest of them.

There were 18 of them randomly planted along my neighbors fence, and they had been placed so close to it that they were now growing under and around the fence. Even with the softened ground from all the rain we've had, they did not go quietly. One was so stubborn, it chose to die a horrific death; leaves and dirt strewn about like feathers surrounding a guilty looking feline. Yesterday I was a shovel welding superhero ridding the yard of evil, one hosta at a time.