A Lively Labor Day

Hope you all enjoyed your labor day weekend.  We live pretty laborious lives, so we decided to take a load off and enjoy our holiday weekend.  No DIY in this house, sorry folks.

We got to spend the weekend with a couple friends and Justin’s parents.  Justin’s mom and I did break out the cameras a bit and got a few good shots of our extra day off.  Thought I would share some good ones…

We went out on Justin’s parents boat for the day.

We swam, drank and ate all day, three of my favorite things woot woot!

We also decided to use the strong current as our very own lazy river, kind of hard with a beverage in hand.  Thankfully there were no casualties.

It was such a perfect day to be out on the water.

We even saw some hot babes on the beach.

I think it was pretty successful non-laboring day.

Landscaping Phase #2

Last I showed you our backyard was lookin like this…

I had told you about the installation of the new drainage and the removal of the hedges.  We were left with a yard o’ dirt.  Then I came home the other day and I walked outside to this…

Ahhh! New magnolias and sod!  I can’t explain our excitement.  Let me show you around…

Take it all in people!

This grass is soft, like the grass we had in NY.  It is awesome to have something that is pleasant to walk on barefoot!

As I mentioned before we used Horizon Landscaping and they did an amazing job!

They were actually still working when I got home around 7pm.  They did such an amazing job, and they even stuck around to tell me how we should be taking care of the new trees and sod.  They were such polite guys and we are really impressed with their work!

We love that we still have lots of space in the yard with the new trees, yet they still block the neighbors in the back.  We will soon have some other updates back here, stay tuned!

Oh and of course some before and afters…

Plants Plants Plants

Apparently I can’t get enough plants for our home, or maybe it’s the fact that I kill so many of them.  Either way we have some new additions to the clan.

It all started with this guy….

Justin’s grandmother gave me this plant for Easter and it is actually doing great.  It has gotten a lot bigger since coming to live at our house and I really like it.  It is a mandevilla, it is a viney plant that grows pretty pink flowers.  Only problem is that it has out grown it’s little trellis that it came with.  It was now reaching for anything else to grow on, including itself.  All of the vines were wrapping around themselves.

Poor thing, see all of the vines twisting around themselves on the left side of this photo?  It was doing that everywhere.  I did try to be a good plant mom and purchase a new trellis at walmart, but they did not have any.  They only had tomato cages…

So, I took one of those home and popped it around the mandevilla.  It seemed to help somewhat and it started to climb the plant cage, but soon it started to outgrow it’s pot and it was starting to tip to one side in the plant stand.  I knew it was time to plant it in the garden and give it a better home with a real trellis, not an imposter tomato cage.  I removed the tomato cage and look how sad the plant then looked…

My plants always look so sad, I am really trying here though people!

I also ran to Lowes and picked up a new larger trellis…

Look at that beauty, I think my little mandevilla plant will be very happy.   I also picked up a bag of top soil and another bag of red mulch.  I then dug a decent whole for the new trellis and the plant.

As I went, I pulled up all the weeds that were pooping through the mulch and any rocks that I came across.

I swear we will never be rid of all of these asphalt rocks that the previous owner had in the garden.

Next I plopped the trellis in the newly dug whole…

Next in went the plant.

I surrounded the plant with top soil and then recovered the hole with any remaining dirt that I had dug up.

Still looking oh so sad.  I am really mentally willing the poor little plant to turn around and realize it has an awesome new tall trellis.

I then added the new mulch…

There she is all planted safely in the ground, hope she does well here.

Since I moved the mandevilla to the garden I now had an empty plant stand.  I felt compelled to fill it, so while at Lowes I picked up a hibiscus plant, they are so beautiful.

It’s orange and pink, I mean come on, tell me that’s not pretty!

Fits perfectly next to our front door.

One more…

Zack decided to hop in this one.

And here is our front yard with the new additions…

Lovely.

I wasn’t quite done there though.  I also picked up a new hanging plant for the backyard since I have managed to kill all three of the petunia hanging baskets.

It is a purslane hanging basket, apparently it blooms for summer and fall.

I love all of my plants and I am hoping I am getting better at taking care of them, wish me luck!

More Yardwork

Remember when we said we were going to add some more plants to our front gardens? Which we left looking like this…

Poor little lone palm tree.

Well, Justin picked up these plants at… wait for it…. Lowe’s.

First up he got two Rhoeo plants. I LOVE THEM.  I love that they are purple!

He got two Gardenia plants, which grow the best smelling flowers ever.  He also got two more sanchezia plants, the same that we have in our back garden.  The few we planted in the back are doing so well and growing in nice, he figured why not a couple more for the front?

Lastly, he picked up some more mulch and a bag of planting soil.

Justin went solo on this gardening job, I was keeping busy cleaning inside.  He started by digging the edging up a bit so the mulch wouldn’t fall onto our front walkway so much.

Here is the garden on the right before.

and this is the garden on the left before.

Next thing I knew he was done!

Boom! He’s quick!

He put one gardenia plant in the back corner of the right garden, along with the two sanchezia plants in the front.

I bought two new hanging plants because our hanging flowers had seen better days.  These are green leafy plants that will hopefully last in my care!

I asked Justin to put the two purple rhoeo plants right by the front door because I LOVE THEM! The other gardenia plant went in the other garden on the left.  The gardens could still use a couple more plants but I think they are now looking a lot less sparse.

One more street view…