Home Sweet Home: SPRING!!!

Cole and I (okay...mostly me) have really been itching to get our yard back in shape. When we bought this house last summer, we knew that the landscaping was going to be a challenge for us to keep looking nice. Neither of us have what one would call a green thumb, and with 5 (and after today, 6) Japanese Maple trees, 97 shrubs, an ornamental cherry tree, four crepe mertyls, lots of lilies, and a few dozen rose bushes to take care of, we have our work cut out for us! The leaves seem to be our biggest challenge. But with the addition of a leaf blower/vac and a riding lawn mower that also bags and mulches leaves, that aspect seems to be under control. The lawn people came out today and started mulching the beds. They got almost all of them done, but they still have to do the ones on the side of the yard, so they will be back Monday. I am excited. It is amazing what a difference just cleaning out the beds and remulching makes!!! I made Cole go around the block on our walk just so we could walk by the front of our house! Makes me happy! Especially since he agreed to just pay someone to do it instead of breaking our backs to do it ourselves! We would still be in the cleaning out process if we were doing it! HA!

This morning my mom and I went to a place a couple of towns over (The Plant Depot in Conway for you local readers) and I got a plants for my 7 pots I have around the front of the house. Cole and I planted some jalapeno and cilantro in my biggest pot yesterday, so it is now growing salsa supplies on the back deck. :)

I am really pleased with how the pots turned out, and wanted to share! Especially since they will likely die at some point in the next 6 months (they always do...) so this way, I can always remember what they looked like!

One of my mixed pots for beside the front door. I love all of the texture in these! I used a fern, caladium, and white licorice. They are all partial sun/shade plants since the front of our house only gets morning sun.

Front door pot #2.

A bit further out picture. The planters were just solid black (they are made of tin). I got them at garden ridge last October- I think it was October- and painted the polka dots on them. One of my first and favorite pinterest projects. Adds just a touch of whimsy to our entry.

African Daises. We took out a large and very dead group of evergreen bushes that had been dead the entire time we had lived here. So I planted these in the corner. They are an annual and I didn't want anything permanent until we saw how their neighbor would do. Plus they are supposed to get nice and big and really bloom out, so they won't look so small and sparse. I hope.

Our newest Japanese Maple. This makes six for our property. We have a huge, gorgeous one in the back, and four other nice sized ones in the front. They say they like partial sun, but the biggest and prettiest one we have is in our backyard, where it is all sun, all day. So who knows. It is a weeping Japanese Maple, and I am so excited! I hope it lives and thrives! They are SO pretty! This is where the dead bushes were.
We are getting a real stake for it- promise! We won't leave it tied to the sprinkler head! HAHA!

Fiber Optic Grass (coolest grass ever) and lilies. These pots are kinda homeless. So I just sort of move them around. But I am thinking they are going to end up on the back deck.

I cannot remember what this is called. But it is a vine that gets these long, pretty purple flowers. Love it!

Also don't know what this one is called! But I love it!

Mixed pot of sweet potato vine. This will look awesome when the vine grows out. See the bed around the pot? That is what they all looked like before the mulch. YIKES!