A Walk In Our Yard

It's weather like this that I wish I lived in Southern California where year-round, it's a steady 75 degrees.  This 100+ degree weather is for the birds!

The only upside, it better give our plants a much needed growth-spurt.

At last count, we put in over 125 plants as well as a salsa garden this past Spring. It was an unusually cool season and the plants just haven't grown like I expected they would. I'm an instant gratification type of person and I want to see my plants BIG and in BLOOM and RIGHT NOW!

Slowly, but surely, things are starting to grow and open...last night was surprisingly nice so Justin and I spent the evening wandering around the yard checking out the plants, talking with our neighbors and drinking mojitos & Dos Equis on our porch swing.  After 15 months of trying to create some sort of yard, it's slowly coming together and we're finally able to enjoy it!

Here's to wishing things cool off again this evening!

These day lilies were 1 of 4 plants that were on our property when we bought the house...If you look closely, you can see a hint of orange petals emerging...I didn't expect the orange to look so nice against the stained fence and khaki siding, but next year I'll be sure to incorporate more bursts of orange around the yard!

Our flowerbed is starting to grow some, especially the False Indigo, Sedum and Blood Grass...in a year or two, everything will be nice and big! 

The ajuga along our concrete steps is starting to fill in and cover up our bare spots!

My first set of ferns died in the cold weather--the 2nd round is doing great!  My fern budget is wrecked for this year but I'm thinking next summer we'll hang a total of 4 ferns.  I like to tell Justin it's my way of recreating a Southern-Style porch for him ;-)

Our former bare spot by the garage now has Zebra grass (looks much more impressive & larger in person!), a different variety of sedum and more ajuga...and in the background is our *last* section of fence that needs stained...we're getting closer to being done!

The tall lilies on the right came with the house, the smaller ones on the left are ones we transplanted this Spring.  My goal is to fill in the northern foundation with more lilies this fall

One of my three clematis vines...this one hasn't grown, the other two turned brown.  I'm hoping they come back next year :-/

The deep corner of the flowerbed--hostas, heuchera, more ajuga and an Oakleaf Hydrangea...the hydrangea seems to be a mighty slow grower :-(

Looking over the fence into the flowerbed...the crazy soaker hose is giving me fits and I'm about ready to be done with it!  Anyone have any soaker-hose tricks to share???

Justin's crab apple tree that he planted.  We haven't done much to it and it's doing great!

We just have tons of shade at our house...The front yard is pretty much in constant shade while the back yard and southern section has LOTS of shade throughout the day as well.  The only area that gets much sun is the section by the alley

If you look REAL close, you might be able to see them ;-)  We planted 7 hostas and a Japanese Painted Fern at the base of our tree as it only gets a few hours of morning sun.  I really, really wanted to plant their full-grown counterparts so we'd have the immediate "wow factor," but they were $17 each.  At that price, baby plants will work!

These are the hostas we planted last summer...someday, the new ones will be the same size!

And the other hostas we planted last summer.  Wow--our grass is looking crispy.  Good thing we started watering last night!



Our knock-out roses are growing some!  The bright pink petals are a nice pop of color among all the green plants.