Yard things............

I got a little burst of energy a couple of weeks ago so I decided to weed eat a big swath on the (very hot) south side of our house. The grass was already 2 feet tall there! How in the heck do weeds growing out of the gravel look better and greener than our sad lawn? Beautiful thick green grass there, but bare spots and brown dead weeds and very thin grass in our lawn. Go figure.

Here's my side "alley" as I call it.. not very pretty but at least the 2 foot high weeds are gone!

This doesn't look like much, but in town on a small lot, every square foot counts! This area is about 5-6 feet wide, and our neighbors have the same thing, and they had it all cemented and now have waist high grow boxes all along the fence and they grow tons of veggies there. I'd love to do that one of these days. At least I can walk through there now, and for now, it's going to be a good storage spot.

After I was done, I was sitting on our front walkway where we have nice shade in the afternoon, contemplating things..... and the yard....... and I looked over at our soon to be removed (hopefully) rock garden and stump from the tree that blew over on April 7th.

My kitty cat was sitting on the stoop wishing a bird would land in our lilac bush. I thought... hum.m.m.m. wouldn't a little bird bath be nice there? Wouldn't it attract the birdies for my kitties to chase? I mean.. they very rarely ever do catch them, but they have a fun time trying!

And oh... I have this tall garden thingy with hooks that I could stick into the ground there to hang a little flag on or some plant pots.. or oh! I have a pretty turquoise colored bird cage that was given to me... wouldn't that be neat hanging from the hook? So off I went to "shop" my back yard (which is still very ugly to me)...... seeing what I could find. I wanted to pretty up that area, even if only for a week or so. I figured everything would be easy to move, right?

From last summer. Nothing wants to grow there!

I have a lone bird bath way out back that sits in a corner. It was supposed to be my pretty garden corner, lush with shrubs and the bird bath, and has old cement steps I could tier my potted flowers on... but for some reason, nothing seems to like it there or grow there. Everything died and all that was left was the lone bird bath. So I removed the bird bath to give it a home somewhere else.... front yard.

I leveled a spot by the stump for the bird bath and put rocks around it so it wouldn't blow over. There's the tall garden "thingy" (what are these called anyway???) to hang some plant buckets on (before I planted anything in the hanging pots).

Here's "after" I planted some flowers in little hanging pots, and the pretty blue birdcage. The pot inside the birdcage I painted pink.. what the heck, it's MY garden right? My hollyhock is doing well, but bugs are eating up the leaves. Those red roses belong to a neighbor but sure are pretty!

I planted some Molly Bells (left) and more orange ones on the right with some sort of hanging purple stuff (forgot the name). I kind of just "stuffed" them in there, probably too much plant for such a little pot! I was in a hurry. This tall garden stake thing and the blue birdcage were given to me by an older lady across the street who moved away and she didn't want them. Score!

I LOVE the look of the lilac bush as a backdrop, and the bird bath and flowers hanging. It really added interest to my little rock garden, even knowing it would have to be all undone within a week or so!

A few other yard things.... got new chair cushions for our patio chairs...  I'm not showing much of the back yard graveled "patio" area yet as it's still a mess! But the chair cushions sure are pretty. I'm trying to add some pops of color using turquoise (and pink of course)!  This was taken a few weeks ago when it was still barren of any color or plants.

I'm trying to get my old blue hutch moved to a spot that I like and will use. It's next to my house right now, in a shady spot, right next to the water spigot. I like it there and I think I WILL paint it.

OOOhhhh .... got 3 nice tomato plants, all cherry tomatoes. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE that scrunchy hose (on the left) that is 50 feet long and  yet scrunches up to a mere 10 or 15 feet when the water is all out.. and it's so LIGHT! Love it!

I potted up some little Johnny Jump-ups that had been growing in the gravel! I swear, things like growing more in my gravel than in the flower beds and lawn. They are doing very well in the pot, and sit on my yellow stool that I painted last summer (needs another coat of paint).

I transplanted two little strawberries that I had bought last summer (and left in the tiny pots), into a larger tub with my other strawberries that came up after the long hard winter... so now I have a full tub of berries and I ate the first one the other day! 

My raspberry plants are thriving...........tons of berries on them. Maybe in a few weeks will have some for eating.

I painted a few things... here's a pink wall hanging metal pocket that was for Halloween (was a bright orange) and has pumpkins engraved at the top.. buy hey... pumpkins are a garden thing, right? Will plant something in it soon.

And the blue hutch got it's first coat of white spray paint (almost all of it but ran out!).........  had to put paper behind it taped to the house so wouldn't get white spray paint all over the house. The hutch is WAY too heavy to try to move again, even with hubby's help. That thing weighs a ton.

Trouble is, although it wasn't supposed to rain, it DID pour that night after I painted! I was not happy... putting it mildly. Have to put a towel on top, as the rain drips off the roof and makes this very annoying drip, drip, drip sound right outside our bedroom window while trying to sleep. The towel mutes the sound. In this climate (dry dry dry) not many houses have gutters.

That may not been a good place for this baby. but I like the shady spot.  Amazingly... it didn't really wash off any of the paint. I just need to finish it and add about two more coats of paint.

Since I started this post, and then finished it today (June 13th)... things have drastically changed in the front yard! More of that saga on my next post!