Thursday, April 15, 2010

Flower Power


My big goal over spring break was to liven up our blah yard a bit with some flowers. I thought it would be a fun project to do with the kids. So after two trips to the nursery, the kids and I spent two days outside, digging and planting together, sipping lemonade, enjoying the sunshine and each other's company.

Yeah, and if you believe that one, I have some property on Venus for sale, too.

Okay, digging and planting of flowers did take place. And lots of "Mom! Annabelle threw dirt at me!" and "Hey, it's MY turn to dig the hole!" Also, running around helter-skelter with sharp gardening implements (the kids, not me).

Anyway, here are a couple pics of before:






And after -

Okay, I know. The white gravel looks like snow. Or something. The kids informed me of this, as did Michael. I had this vision in my head beforehand, and it didn't come out looking exactly like I had hoped. But I'm hoping that once the border flowers fill in, it will be a nicer overall effect.

I think these are called cellulosa . . .?? Or something like that. They're cool. They kind of look like colorful caterpillars.

We got impatiens -


And begonias -


And some daylillies -


And, I can't remember what these are called. But they sure are purdy, huh?!








Runnuculus - (I mighta just spelled that wrong . . .)






And a new bird bath.

I'm hoping everything will look better once it starts filling in some (of course it will, right?).

I'm no gardener. Like photography, it's something I wish I were really knowledgeable about and good at, but I just fake it and hope for the best. I've been known to have a black thumb. Well, maybe not black, but gray anyway. So we'll see how all this holds up.

6 comments:

Lisa said...

I'm tackling our front and back yards in a couple weeks, too. I can't even count how many times I've planted things and, well, unplanted them :) Yours looks nice! I hope mine will look nice, eventually :)

Stephanie said...

Oh man I just planted some flowers today and it was the exact same scene with kids fighting and throwing garden tools at each other and uprooting/stamping on freshly planted flowers...ain't parenting fun?
Your garden looks nice btw and yeah it should look a lot better once everything fills in.

The Beers Family said...

Love the bird bath! The yard looks great - I am starting to tackle our yard this year - we moved in last June. Its fun and daunting at the same time!

The flowers you did not have a name for - in the first picture I think they are called Columbine - they will reseed themselves and come up year after year which is nice.

heather said...

It looks great! And I'm jealous that your flowers will keep on growing and filling in with your great weather year round. Our flowers only last for a few months. So much work for so little time.

Unknown said...

You'll love the columbine (one of the purple ones you planted). I'm impressed:-)

Billie said...

For all your little gardeners out there, have you seen Discovery Toys' "Garden Works"...a gardening set of tools and sprinkler for little hands of little helpers? There's also a cool book "A Seed Grows" that shows how it all happens that those plants flower and bear fruit.

Lisa, you're lucky to live in SoCal. I have a NYC terrace and windowsills to work with. My gardenia is flourishing indoors!

I hope with 6 kids, including one with special needs, you'll find me online. I can help you get "just right" toys and games for each of them that will help them grow.
www.toysofdiscovery.com