Planting . . .FINALLY

Ages ago . . .meaning last summer. . .Jerod and I extended and reframed a flower bed running along the front of our house (check out what it looked like before we worked on it here). Unfortunately, by the time we finished building it we were well into the hottest, driest summer since the Dust Bowl so we decided to wait to do any planting until this year AND I must say I am super excited about it and think it really jazzes up the front of the house. . . here are some pictures! I can't wait to see what it looks like after it fills in a bit.

This is our little house before the planting. The mums were there when we moved in and are lovely in the fall but may ultimately get transplanted elsewhere. I will have to see how they are looking as the rest of our plants grow some. It was hard to get up the nerve to remove the one thing growing.


 A corner shot of the flower bed. Yes . . . I know we need to weed-eat.


All my happy little plants ready for planting:)


Everything planted and mulched! Doesn't it look great? . . .or maybe it's just me?


Again, I think it is a major improvement to have some living things in front of our house.
Oh. . . you can also see the attachment for the soaker hoses Jerod put in. This will make watering and upkeep sooooooooooooo much easier.
Now I am going to give you a run down on what we planted starting with the perennials:


1: Pampas Grass- We both like ornamental grasses and it should give us some much need height and look
good for the whole growing season.



2: Russian Sage- This is supposed to fill out nicely plus it smells delicious AND it helps in attracting butterflies. . .which seemed to be true as I was surrounded by them while planting.


3: Tickseed- It's pretty it's yellow what more do I need to say!?!?!?
Now for the Annuals:


4: Celosia- Jerod saw these and loved them (and I have to agree they are pretty cute) so we thought we would fill in with them (at least this year) and add a pop of color to the bed.


5: Sweet Potato Vine- This is very popular in Oklahoma. It loves the heat, covers big areas and Jerod and I both think it is good looking so. . . we bought the green and purple varieties and staggered the planting. . .my thinking is it will overlap as is fills out and create a cool two-tone ground cover.

Don't worry I will take pictures as the summer progresses.

So what is everyone else planting? Do you love bedding plants as flowers as much as I do? I hope everyone is having a happy late Spring.

End of Summer

The last two weekends have been beautiful! The oppressive heat of the summer broke (although we hear it is heating back up this coming week) and has led to open windows, walks, and a renewed interest in almost everything. . .including this blog.

I thought I would share a few of my favorite pictures from the last few weeks.

Enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Yard: Part IV, things are growing

I know it has been ages since my last post but I needed to let a few things start growing before updating everyone on the yards progress. Also, I will admit I was being a bit lazy about taking pictures.

Without further ado. . .here are the pictures!

This is a little overview of most of the garden.

The squash looking lovely

The okra is finally getting bigger.

Mint and rosemary. Don't worry we will eventually we will deal with this dirt (although it may not be this year)

Marigolds

We've been working on some building projects and indoor projects too. I will try get a post up about all of those in the near-ish future.

As always you can check out the progress of our yard here, here, and here.

The Yard: Part III

The yard accomplishments we made this weekend aren't stunning to look at but . . . I feel we got quite a bit accomplished, especially since we were only able to work on Saturday.

Here is what we did:

1. Removed the rest of the black edging!
2. Finished filling the garden with soil and compost.
3. Finished digging out the side of the front flowerbed.
4. Added and enriched soil in back flowerbed.
5. Planted Cosmos seeds.
6. Removed unfinished railroad tie boarder from the front of house. This one is a big enough deal I'll throw in a couple of before and after photos. We plan on leveling the bed and putting some type of edging or border around it.

It rained Sunday morning which is AMAZING, the precipitation totals for March and April so far were .05 inches. Hopefully, this will green up the yard a bit and really get the Cosmos growing.

*Our previous yard posts are here and here if you are wanting to check-out any of the work we've already done*

The Yard: Part II

Our last two weekends have been filled with yard work, sun and wind. After this last weekend I feel we are starting to make progress! Here are some updates. . .

First, I have been working on removing the world's ugliest and most corroded plastic edging. It is along all of our sidewalks and was put in POORLY, making it harder to remove. I have gotten about 1/2 of it out but it is slow going.


Next, we gave the bushes along the side of the house a little trim. We may have to do more later but it is a start.

*I would like to note, the black edging use to be all along this sidewalk.

Then, we continued on by cleaning out the back flowerbed. I don't have a before and after comparison (I forgot to take a picture when we started) but imagine tons of weeds, grass, rocks and weird holes.


THEN, it was on to extending the front flowerbed. We still need to work on the side area (see bush-trimming pictures) and remove, plus replace the unfinished railroad tie edging but my shoulders and back are aware of the what we have accomplished.

Finally, we are on to the big project! Jerod built the frame for our raised-bed garden. I held things during the assembly but Jerod did 90% of the work. Eventually, we will make at minimum one more bed but that may not happen this year.
We will be filling the bed with a soil and compost mix. Since, our compost isn't ready for use yet we will be getting all that we need from the City of Norman Compost Facility (I think it's cool that this option is available through our city government).

We were so pleased with our work that Jerod took me here for a tostada and beer, both of which I was very glad to have!
Now on to planting and a fence. . .wish us luck!

*If you want to check out our first big yard project you can find it here.*

The Yard: Part I

We (and by we I mean Jerod and his father) made HUGE progress on our backyard this weekend! When we bought our house there was a corrugated metal shed in the backyard. This was good since there was no garage but bad because of its bizarre location (see pictures 1 and 2).

Don't ask me why but whoever put the shed in built it right in the middle of the yard and didn't level it, causing it to tilt towards our neighbors garage. Luckliy, my father-in-law and Jerod devised a plan that involved rolling the shed to the back of the yard on pipes (isn't that how Stonehenge was built?) Now our shed sits lovely and logically at the back of the yard (See picture 5)! Just imagine a fence, garden, flowers and green grass.




A couple of action shots. I tried to be sneaky so as not to interrupt all of the progress they were making.

Happy Daylight Savings Time!!!!!!!

I will start by saying I had other plans for this post unfortunately they fell apart but more on that later. Yesterday was a beautiful day, combine that with the time change and I have decided that winter is over! I'm sure it will get cold again but for now I am ignoring that and soaking up the good spring vibes.
I feel that Jerod and I got quite a bit done yesterday but don't have too much to show for it, picture-wise that is. Jerod raked and cleaned up the back yard and also got a lot of info from our neighbors on both sides (he discovered that the house behind us use to be a crack house, it's very cute now, and some interesting bits on different incarnations of our house and yard). . . so we are slowly but surely getting ready to start all of the yard projects.
I made some new pillows for the living room couch but am waiting to show them off until I finish them all. . .Do not worry I WILL post pictures. I almost finished a couple of small projects but they are gifts so I won't post about them until I give them (you can see part of one in the above photo).
I originally planned to post about the sweater I have been knitting which is/was going really well. I have 2/3 of the body and one sleeve done. Well. . . . all I can say is mistakes have been made. Everything I have mentioned is knit correctly and looking good but either in haste, distraction, or just plain old not paying attention (I began this sweater at the airport during a semi-stressful time)I have made this sweater about 20x to big for me (by misreading the pattern I am making and XL instead of a Medium). What I am trying to say is I am going to have to start over!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can re-use all of the yarn which is good but YIKES! Needless to say, I am a bit frustrated with myself. I am/was enjoying the pattern and really love how sweater is going to look so I will start over BUT I need to take a few weeks off before I do this. In my experience it is often best to step away from a project for a bit after a major mess up. Oh well. . . below is a sneak peek of of what it was looking like. If something is worth doing it is worth doing right. . .Good Lord I am annoyed with myself though.

For today I think I will work on pillows some more and finish up those gifts. Maybe I will watch this while I do it:)
I hope everyone is doing something fun, relaxing or both this weekend.