Lonely Lamp Post

Out side of my house is a lonely lamp post.

Well, it is lonely no more.

Last weekend I gave it some company.

Now it is a Happy Lamp post (and so am I, not lamp post but happy).

Now if I can get some more gardening in the yard done.

Zizette

New Beginnings

Spring is the time for new beginnings, right?

We have had some new beginnings over on my end.

I cut down some AWFUL bushes in my backyard (actually a really awesome brother in law did with his handy chainsaw).

He also cut down two Rhododedron bushes/trees on the side of our house. I have like 10 of them and they have never been trimmed or maintained.

I am not a tree hacker BUT they were so overgrown and blocking a huge area in our yard, not to mention beautiful light into my screened in porch.

I have plans for these areas.

I am thinking to find an awesome table or something to be a gardening table where the Rhodos were. It can back up to the side of the garage and still not block light to my screened in porch.

I love the reclaimed wood/aged look of this one

This would great in the spot

Where the ugly bushes one resided I would love to put a potager garden (box garden). I found a neat little site where I can buy the corner pieces and then you just slide the wooden boards into them. I am very excited for that.

I love the copper corners

Ahh, fresh veggies.

So, aside from a little yard work, Thanks Steve, I also started a new job and so did the hubby.

I love my new job, that was why I was MIA this whole week (I was also doing work for my summer position - I run an activity at a Day Camp called Digital Design/The Design Center.

Basically I have the girls (I do not get boys), go out and take pictures then come back to me to do a craft based around their pictures. This is my third year and I will have to show you some of the stuff we do.

So I was ordering my supplies for that as it was due yesterday.

And all the new beginnings just around me, the flowers starting to come in, the little yard animals out and about and all the lovely birds that I am fortunate to have around me.

Springtime is beautiful!

Enjoy the day!

Zizette

What's with this Ivy?

I used to like ivy.

I thought it was a great accent piece, a nice filler but not anymore.

My yard has tons of ivy.

Tons.

It runs along my driveway and then ends in a huge area (whole back corner) in my yard.

When we fell in love with our house we always knew the ivy would have numbered days.

We have been here about 17 months.

Last year we got rid of trees, now I have to get rid of the ivy.

It just takes up so much space, lots of extra space for the kids to play, a garden to grow and my dream a cute garden shed.

Courtesy of Country Living

So last year we started to pull it out.

HARD.

That freakin' ivy is so dense and so imbedded with itself and the ground it is very tiring.

I did a section the other day and amazingly enough it was easier to pull (probably since the huge rain made the ground so soft the stuff was coming out easily.

I am dying. At this rate I will have it gone by the end of the summer.

And I am all itchy now. I wore gloves, I swear.

I will have to tackle it slowly OR when I finally get my teaching position hire someone else to do it (let them be itchy).

Here's to another day out in the ivy.

Zizette

Dreaming of Blooms

I had to think about something related to warm weather on this FREEEZING day here in the North East, this made me happy.

Ever since we bought our house I have wanted to put in a beautiful landscape design, where is Ahmed Hassan of Landscape Crashers when I got to Lowes or Home Depot?

And we all know how expensive landscaping can be.

I have the most ugly GINORMOUS bushes in front of my house. Seriously they are creeping out, it's unbelievable.

I have been begging the husband to get rid of them. Everyone says, cut them down in the winter - well, it's winter let's get rid of them.

He won't because then the house is bare in front. WHO CARES I HATE THEM. Okay I got that out and I digress. I dream of these beauties and this year will find a way to get some pretty colors going on in front of our house.

I think this would beautiful instead of the Evergreen on the end by the garage

I was thinking of putting some of this around our little light post

I LUUURRVVEE this like no other, there will be plenty around the yard of this gorgeous flower

These are just as gorgeous, I was thinking of this by the front steps

Some of these mixed in too with some boxwoods

I have always loved flowers, back in the day I took Floral arranging as a science at Community college. This year hopefully I can have some flowers from my our garden to arrange.

Have a lovely day.

Zizette

Inspiration

My friend Mimi, over here

introduced me to Potager gardens.  I fell in love.  Now for the past two years I have been in my parents home and on the deck surrounding the pool had something like a potager garden (not really knowing what this was until Mimi showed me) in the yard.  It was basically a wall/planter.  Every year I have done planting for my parents, growing herbs (we had to move the mint over to a separate potager since it took over one whole area - but YUM MOJITOS!!), cucumbers, tomatoes, squash, beans and much more.  Maya wanted strawberries last year so we added a few.  They actually came up this year and a few more than we had last year.  There are even strawberries coming up now.

So, I have these ugly shrubs outside of my screened in porch.  I believe that is where I will put my potager. I am very excited. Thank you for such wonderful inspiration.

Yard Work

How lovely it would be to have a gorgeous yard like this

I would so love for my yard to look like this one day.  It doesn't right now but with a little work, well a lot of work hopefully it will get there.  Dear hubby is out there right now working on our lawn.

Gardening

I really have to get in gear and do some gardening.  I have about 5-7 massive trees/bushes in my backyard.  Everyone kept saying to us, "Oh you have beautiful rhododendrons back there.  What do I know.  I just see these big green bushes.  They started having these cone like bulbs on them,  Today I see purple coming out of them and I even saw one fully in bloom ( I couldn't get up that high though). I did take pictures of various stages though.

I have to get rid of some other bushes in my yard, we will have to do some yard work.  Lots of yard work.