White + a pop of color + simple, organic forms. That’s a combo that will get me every time.
Tag: garden
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Homegrown Tomatoes
Another item off the 30 Before Thirty list:
25. Grow tomatoes.Done!
And they are delicious.
I’d better get moving on the rest of my list though. I have less than two months to go and still 19 items to complete. Yikes. And here I thought I was making good progress…
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Our Furniture in my Mom’s Backyard
Last year, I worked on our front porch for a Better Homes & Gardens 48-Hour Challenge. It was a lot of fun and we even won, which was awesome (and all thanks to you). I spend a lot of time out front sitting with Eleanor because she loves to watch people walking by, especially if they’re walking by with a dog, and we’ve really had a good time enjoying the front porch as a family. This year though, I decided to give the furniture from our porch to my mom.
My mom has two small children of her own, and they’re living on just her husband’s salary while she stays home with the kids (my very young brother and sister) and goes back to school to switch careers (she has always wanted to be a teacher). My mom and I both fell for gardening in the last couple of years, and she has turned her backyard from barren and weedy to something lush and beautiful. The only problem is that she doesn’t have a lot of extra money right now, and she only had two little chairs for her entire yard. I thought that the table and chairs and bench from our porch would look really cute in her yard, and in that way I’m able to share with her some of the opportunities that I’ve had through the blog.
I don’t know if my mom is going to paint the pink set (I told her to go ahead — my feelings will not be hurt), but doesn’t it look great in her yard? And I love that she added a cushion to the bench to tie it in with the chairs that she already had.
(Love you, mom.)
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Landscape the Front of the House
This was one of the items on my 30 Before Thirty list. We’ve lived here for three years now, and the front has been a bit bare the whole time. There was a dead Rose of Sharon that we removed, but not before leaving it up for a year first (“maybe it will come back!”). We also added some hostas (free from my dad’s house) and two boxwoods (small, and not holding up so well).
I feel like there’s more pressure to make the front of the house look nice because that’s the public part that everyone sees. I’ve been having fun experimenting with the garden in the back, adding and subtracting, moving and rearranging plants as I see fit. And it’s looking pretty cute back there!
But the front? Nope. The front has remained bare because I’m too afraid to put the wrong plants in. Yeah, well guess what I did.
I went to the nursery looking for some flowers and a bush. I got five astilbes (good choice!), but then I also got an Ivory Halo dogwood (wrong choice). The flowers are excellent in the shade, which is what the front of the house gets. The bush is supposed to be in full sun. I didn’t even look at the tag because we have three of the dogwoods in the backyard getting partial sun, and I thought I remembered them being OK in part sun to shade. Wrong. So now I’m not sure if I should move it (to where, I don’t know), or take my chances and hope it survives.
Oh, and the front of the house still looks pretty bare.
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Urban Chairs
Did you notice our backyard patio among the pictures from Eleanor’s birthday party? Just in case you missed it, here it is again.
We were able to get four of the chairs through Craigslist (thanks to some helpful readers!), and we picked up the other four Urban chairs at IKEA. They’re working out nicely.
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Modern Plant Stands
I’m obsessed with modern planters on stands. How amazing are these Pod Planters? Or the Walnut Stand and Vessel? And I’ve always been fond of the colorful Retro Bullet Planter.
Unfortunately they’re all on the pricey side. Sure I could spring for one, but what I really want is a whole grouping. I do already own a set of similar planters from CB2 though, seen in this photo from three years ago…
The problem? They tip over really easily. And maybe that’s a problem with the others too, but I think they look sturdier. Another problem? The white paint is flaking off and the planters have become chipped and rusted. That’s not such a problem though because that gives me the opportunity to go ahead and spray paint them guilt-free. They’re already less than perfect, so I can only improve them by painting them!
I’m thinking yellow.