Stepping Aside for House Projects...(picture heavy!)

There have been many projects we've been meaning to work on around the house and we finally caught up on most of them...and a few extras that were not in the works. Aside from paper crafting, I also really enjoy gardening and landscaping. I'm by no means a professional, just like to have fun and experiment! I will emphasize that my yard would not look nearly as "clean" and decorated if I worked outside the home. When I'm outside to play its like a release from my Mommy duties and I'm at peace...even if it means my riding lawnmower is drowning out my daydreaming! So hop on board and I will take you around my yards!We started in the backyard with moving 14 Leland Cypress trees from the very back of our property and moved them forward to our chain link at the back. This will give us much needed privacy from the property directly behind us as well as hide the chain link a bit more.As you walk out my back door and onto the deck, you will see the other 14 shrub trees (some over 10 ft. tall!) to the right. These shrubs are a mixture of Thuja Green Giants and Spartan Juniper Shrubs.I love the fullness of these shrubs! It makes our deck feel very cozy in the evenings.The back of our property. As you can see in the pic below, our property goes pretty far back but we did not fence in the whole acre as we have "wetlands" here in NC and you are not allowed to install a fence within the "wetlands" area. We've installed a small portion of sand and sod and hope to turn this back area into a sort of retreat...it would be perfect for a large veggie garden.This is my garden in progress! As of yesterday I pulled the black weed sheeting up and have dug out the grass. I have 3 crepe myrtles planted and plan for my little veggie garden to go in the middle this year.Now in my front yard. I laid the bricks and shrubs last year, but added some Lantana's and Salvia this week.The brick work curves around the right side of my home. More Lantana and Saliva, along with Red Verbena in the hanging baskets. Don't mind my fence...it was hit and miss with the stain...eeek!My pictures got a bit out of order on these last few, but this view is on the left side of the house. I doubled up on my hanging baskets here (not really crazy about it!) so I had room for my Verbena on the other side. I have a Crepe Myrtle (Dynamite Red) on each side of the fence and I'm super excited to see these bloom this year. Last year all I had were leaves and more LEAVES!Front of the side-loader garage. I planted these purple Salvia last year and they came back 3 times the size. You can see they are taking over and hiding the Japanese Boxwood's behind them. In between the Salvia are Yellow Gerber Daisies. You can see a few poking thru, but they too are overwhelmed by the Salvia. When we moved in to our house 2 years ago, it did not have a mailbox. We have been just fine with the "mailbox on a post" design, but I really had been wanting a brick mailbox, which are standard back home (Oklahoma). I saved up from all the custom orders I've been working on and this is our new beauty! It reminds me so much of home and my parents have a similar design with the planters.Finally, the center island in my front yard. The brick was laid almost 2 years ago and I wanted to extend the design outward. It reminds me of a helicopter propeller! I installed a metal edging (much less time consuming than the brick!) on both sides and planted Soft Touch Holly and Knockout Roses. Both of these plants will grow pretty large and that excites me because I love full and bushy gardens. If you've made it to the end of my post, I fully expect you do go out and plant something fun today! You don't have to spend ooodles of money to have something nice in your yard. All these projects were done in stages and when certain plants were on sale.

I do have many crafting projects to share soon! Although I stepped away from blogging, I still remained busy behind the scenes...fun stuff to share!