Planting Pops of Color.

The same day I planted my succulents, some outdoor planting got accomplished too.  The outdoor stuff is what actually kicked my butt into gear to get the succulents done.

On a recent trip to IKEA, I couldn't resist helping myself to a few planters.  Two of them, you saw here...they live on our front porch.

The third one I purchased is a white, three-tiered plant stand.  I totally fell for the uniqueness of it.  I adore the fact that it's not a typical planter you see every day. 

Hubby couldn't wait to add some life to it, so during a nice weekend day, we headed to Home Depot's Outdoor Center...along with the rest of the world. ;)

We picked out beautiful dahlias for the front porch planters and some colorful begonias for the IKEA planter.

We even purchased two hanging planters of pansies, but removed the hanging apparatus, and put them at the bottom of our patio steps.  They are a great pop of color in our backyard.

Since I love all things ombre, I decided to organize my begonias in an ombre type fashion...going from orange to pink.

Now this fun planter lives in our back porch, and gives us a pretty view, both out the kitchen window and from the back patio.

 

PS-The dahlias on our front porch have now fully bloomed.  When we went to the garden center, we chose the plants that had the least amount of open blooms on them.  We were hoping that if we bought plants that hadn't yet blossomed, we would be able to enjoy more of it's time in bloom.  It seems to have worked, and they are thriving.  Heck, the ones we bought for the back yard have even been thriving!  High five for us not killing our new plants after a few weeks! ;)

The Magic of Mulch!

Since the days of being outdoors are basically here, we have taken quite a few steps to transform the eyesore that is our landscaping.  I shared step one with you guys last week, and I foreshadowed that step two involved some mulch.

After a delivery of 8 yards {we still need 4 more} and quite a bit of sweat equity on the boys part {LOVE them}, our beds have finally came to life!

{These pictures were taken on different days and with different equipment...that's why there is different light, amounts of pollen in the beds and equipment strewn throughout the yard.  Forgive me!}

Things are not finished yet.  These pictures were "pre-tree appointment", we still need to get a strip of sod to go in the dirt that is left in the bed to the left of the front door and we need to mulch the bed on the other side of the driveway and continue to spread the mulch around the side of the house.

All that aside, I think it still looks a lot better than it used to!  Now, a couple before and afters {errr, progress shots} for fun. :)

Anyone else get their landscape on lately?!?!

Planting Party!

What did we do last Saturday night after showing our neighbors some love??  Shower, re-energize with a Diner dinner and hunt down the perfect plants to spruce up our em-BARE-assing yard at Home Depot, of course.

Thanks to some smart thinking by my mom, we took a couple minutes to map out our beds on paper before we left the house.  We took note of how many, what size and what type of plants we'd need to purchase.  This step was super helpful, and totally eliminated some clueless wandering that definitely would have taken place.

Luckily for us, HD had an awesome selection of plants, at the perfect prices.  Before I knew it, the sun had set, the workers were desperately trying to close the lawn section of the store and we were trying to check out with two, fully loaded carts.

{Hubby with our carts...}

Once we paid, it was on to renting a Home Depot truck.  Thank gosh for those rentals because there was noooo way we were fitting two trees, multiple bushes, a pitchfork {for our future mulch delivery} and a bunch of mountain pinks into either one of our cars.

{Hubby and Papa Dukes locking up our precious cargo...}

With only a couple minor heart attacks {trees falling over, told you they wouldn't stay standing...the bed popping open....our scotch broom bush almost flying out the back...eeeek}, we made it home safe and sound.

The next morning it was time to set all the plants where we wanted them to go.  Plotting everything out before we started digging any holes ensured that we didn't make any mistakes with placement. 

{Hubby and Mom hard at work.}

Before we could get it just right, a poorly placed plant needed to be removed.  Lucky for us, our neighbors were more than happy to help out on Sunday after we painted their house on Saturday.

{Our neighbor easily ripping our sad looking rhododendron out of the ground.}

Since we semi-planned before we even went to Home Depot, it didn't take too long to figure out the perfect layout.

{Bed to the left of the front door...}

{Bed to the right of the front door...}

{Small section of the bed to the left of our front door.  A few tulips and hyacinths growing wildly in our backyard also got transplanted here.}

{Bed along the back of the driveway...}

{Bed along the front of the driveway.  See how much needed to be weeded out of there!!  And we already cleared this bed out a couple months ago.  I can tell we'll be battling this one for years to come...}

Once the layout was taken care of...it was time to start digging!  Well, the strong hubby's started digging. ;)

{Pete planting one of two white azaleas given to us by his mom.} 

My neighbor and I began weeding the AWFUL bed that runs along the driveway.  Thankfully, it wasn't long before the plants were in, watered and the boys were joining us to help clear out the huge "nightmare" bed.

After a couple hours of hard work, our yard was finally starting to show some life.

And don't worry...I know that our beds still look very unfinished.  But never fear!  We had a friend who does landscaping, drop off 8 yards of mulch...and the boys got busy spreading it this past weekend. 

After we get an additional 4 yards {12 yards in total}, we'll finally have our place fully mulched!

 {First 4 yard delivery in the driveway...}

BTW, I was hoping to have some fun pictures, and possibly videos of some major tree work on our property from today, but that plan has been put on hold.  The nor'easter that brought torrential rains to the East Coast yesterday caused our tree people to reschedule for Friday.  Fingers crossed that I'll have some fun updates from that work for you guys by early next week!