Making it Lovely

Tag: garden

  • Cooped Up

    Cooped Up

    I spent a good portion of yesterday researching chickens. I’m fascinated by the idea of keeping chickens in the backyard for eggs! I don’t know if it’s right for us, but I had a lot of fun looking at chicken coops and imagining having one out back.

    1. Chicken Crib
    2. Eglu Cube
    3. Modern Chicken Coop
    4. The Saltbox Coop
    5. Eglu Go
    6. Portable Chicken Coop

    Design*Sponge recently wrote about keeping chickens, and Apartment Therapy wrote about the subject a couple of years ago. As people are becoming more aware of their food sources and sustainable living (both things I’m working on), it seems chicken keeping is making a big comeback. I haven’t met anyone keeping them in an urban (or suburban) setting, though it seems they’re out there! Do you or any of your neighbors have chickens?

  • Outdoor Dining Chair Options

    Outdoor Dining Chair Options

    Now that the weather has (mostly) warmed up, I’m eager to get to work outside. I’m still looking for a matching set of dining chairs for the backyard. I would love to own any of these, but buying eight of them would be pretty pricey:

    Here’s what we’ll likely end up with:

    I haven’t sat in the Blankö chair (my IKEA doesn’t have it yet), but Brandon and I both like the simple lines of it. I’ve considered the Urban chair before, but I always think it looks a little funny in person. Maybe out of the store and in the context of my garden it would look more stylish? They look sharp in this photo that ran in Blueprint:

    Which chair would you choose?

  • Evergreens Needed

    Evergreens Needed

    I took a photo of our snowy backyard this morning, and I’ve been using it to plan for some new additions. The garden has come a long way since we moved in three years ago (it was essentially a blank slate), but it is still lacking the year-round color and structure that evergreens would provide.

    Evergreens Needed

    I don’t know which evergreens to use, but at least I have an idea of where I want them to go. I love mountain laurel, but it’s not available here. Rhododendrons don’t grow well in my soil. Arborvitae, pine, yew, and juniper seem so common and boring, but I suppose that’s because they thrive in Chicago. I do like boxwood, but as someone warned me when I planted them, they are “going to bite it”. I didn’t heed the warning and indeed they aren’t doing so well (yet I want to add another?). I still have about two months before it will be warm enough to actually plant something, so I have a little time to figure something out.

  • Garden Growth

    I could tell that the flowers in my garden had grown, but I hadn’t realized how much until I looked at a photo from last year. This is what they look like now:

    Our Yard

    This is the same area, last July:

    Another Little Garden

    A huge difference, no? And here now, from a different angle:

    Our Yard

    The area to the left of the egg chair is looking a little bare, but there are hydrangeas that just need to fill in. Any idea how long that will take? I’m thinking years and years. *Sigh.*

    Kinda Bare Here

  • How My Garden Grows

    It seems that spring has finally arrived in Chicagoland. I did alot of work last year to the garden, and I’ve been eager to see how everything would look now. How big will the plants be? Will everything come back, or will some plants not make it? Well, so far things are looking good.

    Firewitch:
    Firewitch

    Anemone:
    Anemone

    Karen Azalea:
    Karen Azalea

    Ivory Halo Dogwood:
    Ivory Halo Dogwood

    Hostas, boxwood, and tulips:
    Hostas, Boxwood, & Tulips

    I’m not sure how much gardening I’ll be doing this summer, but I did buy two giant green planters from IKEA and a sky pencil holly from Sprout Home.

    Sky Pencil Holly

    I think I’ll put the holly against the back of the house (seen here, last summer):
    Another Little Garden

    I wanted to put the planters on the front porch, flanking the door, but Brandon thinks they’ll be too heavy once they’re filled with dirt. Our porch is pretty old, and he may be right… I’m not sure if it could support the weight. I like them though, so I’m sure I can find a spot for them somewhere.

    Hooray for spring and all its renewed greenery!

  • What Type of Evergreen is This?

    What type of evergreen is this?

    Anyone know? It’s about 3′ tall and I really like the shape of it, but I don’t know if it grows that way naturally or if it was pruned.