Garden Party

It's been a busy week around here - I've been working my butt off prettying things up in the yard. 
The backyard was looking pretty rough - half the yard is dead again.  The perils of owning a female dog I suppose....

 

 

We haven't entirely decided what we're going to do about the grass yet, but I am leaning towards having a company come, rip it out, re-level the yard and re-sod.  But in the meantime, I knew I wanted to add some lushness to the yard.

 

Enter these little beauties:

 

We picked up 4 of these Emerald cedars for the back of the yard and I love how green and lush they are!  They were the absolute best choice, in my opinion.   However, I will note that if I had my way, I would have added another 1 or 2. 

 

(pre-planting)

But Cory wouldn't carry any more, so my hands were tied.  However, I think it will be nice to add more trees/shrubs and perennials over time and see how the area progresses.

 

My dream has always been to make some raised flower beds along the back and as you can see above , we started....

I've run out of blocks and need to pick up a few more from my dad's place before I show off the finished product, but I'm really loving how it's coming along!

 

 

Until the yard fills out a bit (or someone comes to re-do the sod), I wanted to add a little something to make the space more welcoming.  I've typically always found lawn ornament type things to be a little "kitschy", but I recently saw a friend's yard and loved the way her ornaments looked and figured I couldn't hurt to find some that worked for us.  Well low and behold, what do we see here:

 

 

 

 

Yup, we added a little prettiness to the yard, here are some close-ups of the items I picked up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I only chose items that spoke to me.  They had to be pretty and have a slightly vintage/shabby chic vibe.  Most of them are in fact metallic or on metal.  I'm interested to see how they will wear over time, with the weather.

 

I also scored a few of these beauties and I'm entirely in LOVE.  They are the prefect turquoise color with a nice worn-in look to them.  I'm not entirely sure whether or not I want to use them as planters, bird seed holders of bird baths, but either way, I added them to a couple of the posts and want to return and get one for every post!

 

I really love how the addition of the decorations to the fence add a little something to the yard.  Whenever we get around to fixing up the lower patio and adding a firepit area to the middle of the yard, it sure will make things cozy out there!

 

 

Another cute (sorta) find were these solar power bird spotlights.  They were similar to the bird lawn ornaments I picked up a few weeks ago, and I will be putting them in the back by the cedars to illuminate the far back a little bit.

 

 

Here's a quick peek at where one of those little birdies ended up:

 

He seems right at home on a little table on the upper deck.  

I made the brave mood of adding lime to my color palette this year.  I was a little nervous about it initially, but now I am really loving it!

 

I planted the pots less than 2 weeks ago and they are doing wonderfully!

 

 

That's just a quick look at some of the things we've been up to around here.  So tell me, how does YOUR garden grow??