Plants!

I missed planting flowers so much last year when we were in the apartment, so I have been trying to make up for it this year. Our house was new construction, so with the exception of some nice shrubs and and a crape myrtle in the front of the house, and several huge pin oaks, we started with nothing.

This is a sweet potato. Haha! Several years ago, in my apartment in Raleigh, while rummaging around the pantry for something that would constitute dinner, I came across a sweet potato I had forgotten about. It had several sprouts coming out of it, all at least six inches long. I was surprised it hadn't started rotting, and for some reason I decided to plant it in a pot on my patio. It grew and grew all summer long. A week ago, or so, I noticed a purple sweet potato I hadn't used has started to sprout tiny vines. I knew exactly what to do with it!

(sweet! hahaha - get it? sweet?)

Christopher's father found some of these plant stands on clearance a couple years ago. He got one for Christopher's mom, sister and me. It works quite nicely for the back porch!

This was a Home Goods FIND! Christopher thinks it's weird, but he is wrong. It is actually awesome. It's by far the cutest planter I have ever seen.

(pretty lantana - one of my faves!)

(meow)

For Earth Day this year, we joined the Arbor Day Foundation. When you join, you get 10 free trees. When the trees come, they are basically twigs with tiny little roots on them. We got the flowering tree collection - two red buds, two white dogwoods, two crabapples, two goldenraintrees and two washington hawthorns. We planted them and have been giving them lots of water, and look how good they have done!

(there are only eight...two didn't make it)

Christopher and I planted this little flower box in a little "dent" in the house.

Money plant, some anemones which haven't bloomed yet, spiderwort, some poppies which are long gone, some purple plants I can't remember the name of, a balloon flower Ouida gave me, and some cosmos which I grew from seeds that a coworker of Christopher's sent home with him!

(I'm waiting for that money plant to completely dry out, and then I need to find a place for the dried stalks in the house.)

Purple butterfly bush. This one isn't as dark as the tag led me to believe, so I think we will get another one to go next to it. I really like the real dark purple!

My parents got us this pretty white dogwood as a house warming present. We planted it, I believe, at Easter. It's doing so well!

We planted a little shade garden between two trees. We did this at least a month ago, but we just got mulch for it this past weekend. The mulch made a huge difference.

There's a bleeding heart, some hosta, helleborus aaaand...another plant I can't remember the name of. I also noticed there are two wild ferns that just started popping up, so I will water and fertilize those as well.

We planted this coneflower this past weekend. We had some "bloom bucks" from LA Reynolds to use (love LA Reynolds!).

Isn't this beautiful??? Okay - so it's not pretty now, but hopefully it will be in the spring. We planted a couple tiger lilies and some buttercups. They were supposed to go in the ground a month ago, so I hope they will be okay... :-/

Christopher's parents got us this hydrangea as a house warming present. It had a beautiful punk bloom on it earlier in the spring.

This was actually our first flower project at the house. I took some lilies from the house in Raleigh, and I had them in an old cookie tin in my parents' garage. My dad called one day and said they were growing, and had actually popped the lid off the tin. Had to find a home for them ASAP. There's also some poppies and anemones in there, and some hyacinth and tulips hiding underground. It's looking a little sad right now, since they were all spring blooms.

Marigolds at the mailbox. Marigolds are one of Christopher's faves.

Some petunias, geraniums and snapdragons at the front door....I need to go take that dead petunia vine out of there...