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Saturday, October 3, 2009

I love gardening

The weather has been awesome in Florida and finally starting to cool down a little bit. This week, during Rachel's first nap, I decided to get some stuff done on the outside of the house. The back porch was a huge, cluttered mess so I cleaned it off on Tuesday. I wish I had a before and after picture. Unfortunately, the back porch is still ugly and in desparate need of repair, but is now clutter free. On Wednesday, I mowed the lawn. On Thursday, I worked in the backyard pulling weeds and picking up trash. Now these weeds are not just flower bed weeds, they are weeds that are like a carpet in parts of our lawn that are in the shade. They come from the neighbor's yard and are awful. We now have bare spots in our yard, but I am hoping the grass will grow in those spots. On Friday, I moved to the front yard and trimmed my periwinkle, swept the porch and walkway, and pulled out my hibiscus that were in front of our house. I planted them when we first moved in about 3.5 years ago and they did well at first, giving me pretty flowers. Two died during the winter and the others never flowered again. They grow just fine, but I wanted more than green plants. I have been wanting to pull them out, but just didn't know what to put in that would give me color, but would do okay in the shade. I love to garden and look at plants and wander around the nursery, so I went last night to get some ideas. Matt, Rachel, and I loaded up in the truck this morning and picked up my plants and mulch. Matt helped me plant while Rachel napped and I am so pleased with the results that I wanted to show everyone. I hope they look this good in a few weeks/months. But first, a picture of Rachel to appease you.


She has started making so much noise this week. She is constantly squealing, cooing, oohing, and aahing. It is really funny.

The front of our house. It is hard to see my new plants so I have some closeups next.

The tree is a purple princess glory tree and most of the time I see them as bushes. I really like it a lot and it has pretty purple flowers. No buds yet, but I am still hoping.

This is the left side of the garden. The first plant is the red sister ti plant and I love these for shady areas. They have more pink than red leaves and basically require nothing.

This is a stromanthe. I love the colors, especially the pink.

Behind the tree was looking a little bare and I have always really liked the oyster plant. I thought they would add a splash a color and fill in some space.

This is a veragated ginger and smells really good. Not too strong, but when I was planting it, I could smell it.

This is a mammie croton. I have the petra croton in a few other places in my yard. I used to not really care for this variety, but I wanted something different and these have grown on me over time.

Matt has done a little more work in the kitchen as far as finishing touches. He put trim on the corners of the island and at the bottom.

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