Fall Foliage

(Insert generic reason for not blogging. I.E: busy, IEP's, messy house, etc.)

Oh my the house is a mess right now!  Let's just say that the mancave is completely bare.  Operation Mancave Make-Over is in full swing!

But we'll get to that later.  Currently I'm loving my fall front porch. 

I can't bring myself to pitch my summer petunias.  Go figure that the one year I didn't end up killing all my fleurs was during the worst drought since the Dust Bowl. 

The one casualty of the blistering heat-my fancy, flameless candle.  Poor, pitiful candle. (Eric actually thought I was trying to be artsy and bought it that way-ha!)

We (and by "we" I mean my awesome boyfriend, otherwise known as my husband) also planted a couple of mums in the empty front flower bed-which you might remember is empty due to this little project. 

Obviously we still have a long way to go before this is finished, but we really liked the color it added.  And hey, at least it's a start.

Can you believe that this sweet lil' lantern was only $2.50 at Home Depot?  Thanks Home Depot for feeding my other obsession-lanterns.

The plan is to update tomorrow on the status of the mancave.  Stay tuned!

Blooming

Things are blooming around here this weekend!  *Most* of our flowers have been planted and I'm sooooo happy with the way they turned out this year! 

These are from my cell phone so they're not the best quality.  Purple and yellow was the color scheme of choice and I'm LOVING the way they look against the yellow door!  The black pots are actually chalkboard painted.  I'm still trying to decide what to write on them. 

Here's a view of the backyard fleurs.  We get tons of shade so lots and lots of impatients.  There are two of these baskets on the patio fence.

And here's the back corner of the patio.  When we moved in, we found this bird bath stand had been left, sans top.  You would not believe how difficult it is to find a stinkin top!  I've looked at Walmart, Target, Lowe's, and Home Depot with no luck.  Garden Ridge is next up on my stop.

Anyone else do any planting lately?

Now Ya See it, Now Ya Don't

As promised here's a look at the outside shenanigans that went on at our casa last weekend.  If you'll remember, here's what our front landscaping looked like before:

We had a funky hedge in the front (to the far left of the picture) that was awkwardly short and some randomly placed bushes in the front garden bed.  I've had it out for the hedge for quite a while but figured it would be a long time before we focused on making the outside purty. 

Eric (who's THE man, by the way) surprised me by pulling out the nasty hedge for my birthday.  We got so many compliments that I think he got motivated to pull out the other ugly stuff we've been eying since we moved in.

Maybe not the hugest difference in the world, but it makes us pretty dang happy!  I really like that the stone fireplace is more visible now.  Here's a view from the front:

Granted it's very bare, but we're happy to have a blank slate to work with.  Neither of us knows a whole lot about landscaping, so we want to take our time researching where we'll go from here.  We've also got a couple landscaping gurus in mind whose brains we'll be picking very soon.

Here's what we do know: our house faces West and this bed only gets sun from about 1-4 PM.  We *think* our soil is relatively well-drained.

  On the To Do List:

• Research, research, research!
• Dig out existing rock and install new landscaping plastic or fabric
• Look for/buy perennial plants that bring more color and texture to the space
• Specifically looking for ornamental grasses and maybe a flowering bush or two
• Replace current rock with a more contrasting color of rock or mulch
• So far we're thinking either grayish/whitish/beigish rock or dark brown mulch
• Integrate annuals, possibly in containers spaced throughout the bed

Have you ever tackled a landscaping project?  Are you a good resource for us?  We'd LOVE to hear from you :0)