Loving the yard!

Here's how the deck/yard is looking these days. We love it! I'm having fun in the gardens, just experimenting and trying to learn how to grow stuff b/c I've never done it before. I love to go to Lowe's and 'rescue' plants for 50 cents or $1, bring them home, and see them get big and beautiful with some TLC (& lots of water). I had a dream last night that my eggplant plant was covered with little baby eggplants. I have no idea what I will do if that happens, since the only thing I even know of containing eggplant are eggplant parm and baba ganoush (sp?). So, if anyone has some great eggplant recipes, let me know!!

Here's the very colorful front bed, surrounded by lots of monkey grass veggie garden

Zoe swingin'

The veggie gardens are on either side of the magnolia bushes, and there are a few blueberry plants under the magnolia bushes which will be fun for the kiddos if they do well! We have 3 more over by the deck too.

The front is nothing if not colorful! Craig and the across the street neighbor both say they like it. I'm not as sure. The gladiolus (gladioli?) are beautiful & huge! The petunias & marigolds in the pots are pretty too, when I remember to water them :)

It looks pretty empty back here because I planted lots of monkey grass (liriope) so as to fill most of it out with low maintenance foliage that can stand the heat and sun. As we've noticed in our front yard, it is hard to kill this stuff... and easy to divide and plant it elsewhere in the spring. The beds in front of the deck (left, in the picture) also have carpet phlox that will be pink next spring, and I'm about to plant lantana there, since the other plants I've gotten from a nursery all keep dying. Here's the huge river birch that we can't prune until 'sap season' is over. Underneath it are marigolds & dianthus that would like lots more sun. There are day lilies, vibernum & rose of sharon on either side of the tree also. My window boxes & hanging baskets are overflowing with flowers (impatients, petunias, verbena & vinca vine) - I love them!

And over here, we have a HUGE chaste tree, a butterfly bush & vibernum in dire need of pruning, a rose of sharon, a couple boxwoods hidden in the back for some unknown reason, daylilies, vinca, and several spirea. I planted a baby weigela bush & baby hydrangea here too

A baby butterfly bush in the planter Craig built, along with some petunias and bacopa (which looks scraggly so I think it's about to get replaced)