Backyard Paradise

I have my own little paradise in my backyard. One of the first things I do every morning is open the blinds in my bedroom window which overlooks my backyard so I can see what new flowers are blooming or what birds are visiting.
I keep adding new plants and bushes...not nearly as many as I'd like though. I have to wait until Greg buys a weedeater before I can really plant anything else because he doesn't want too many obstacles to push the lawnmower around. LOL
Funny story about these shrimp plants in my hummingbird garden...this was the first little garden we put in because we saw hummingbirds all around when we moved in last year. My dad gave me 4 shrimp plants from cuttings out of his yard. So all year and through the winter they were very small and didn't have the red tops on them like this.....
Once it got warm and we finally started getting rain they just took off and now they are beautiful. Dakota and I were walking around the yard one day watering, pulling weeds, etc and he saw the shrimp plants with the red tops and he said "Oh no! Mom, your plants are dying!" He didn't realize that was the flowery part.

We just planted this bed (don't have mulch around it yet because I'm having a hard time finding mulch!) from plants my dad gave me. I don't remember the name of the tall plants. The smaller ones are iris lilies but they haven't begun blooming yet. The tall ones are so cool because we wake up every morning with flowers blooming all over these plants, but they fall off every evening and the next day there is a fresh new flower in its place.
I took this picture of the purple flower in the morning as it was still opening up and there was still dew on everything... I took this picture of the pink one late in the afternoon...you can see how much the flower opened up and there is a flowerbud behind the two flowers that will open the next morning.
Our backyard has a fence around the back part because there is a large drainage area/holding pond type thing back there that is maintained by the county and then beyond that is a very busy main road in town. We live two blocks from a hospital and a fire station. We hear fire trucks, ambulances, life flight and police cars on a regular basis. I've started planting bushes and climbing vines back along the fence line to help block out the road. It's almost to where you can not see our backyard from the road anymore due to the trees and bushes...which is what I wanted.

This is one of the latest bushes I planted - a wisteria. I LOVE these deep purple flowers that are all over it!

Working in my yard

With all the rain we have had lately everything is so green, flowers are blooming and I've had an itch to work in the yard. It's been interesting seeing what plants/flowers are springing up from various places throughout our yard. We bought our house in the fall so everything was dying and we weren't aware of what treasures we had.

These cannas were dying when we moved in - we knew they were here but they didn't look near as beautiful as they do now! In our neighborhood we have underground lines. We love this! It's really nice because we won't have to worry about our power lines getting knocked over by falling trees during hurricanes but there are these big ugly green boxes in front of everyone's yard...most people have planted things in front of them to try to "pretty them up."

Aren't these flowers beautiful? I love the leaves AND flowers on this plant.
This is our front bed where we removed a very large azalea bush from in front of the living room window right after we moved in. When we did that though it revealed cable boxes and ugly wires that go to our neighbors house next door. We've been staring at that "mess" for nine months and we finally went to the store this past weekend and got this piece of lattice work to cover all the wires. I went back yesterday and picked out a passion vine (still in the pot in front of garden) that I'm going to plant by the trellis and have it grow up that trellis.
These are the unique flowers on the passion vine. They are absolutely gorgeous! There are several buds all over the one I purchased - I can't wait to see all these flowers opened up.
While I was at the store yesterday I decided to pick up these two pieces of trellis and this jasmine plant. I planted these in my backyard between my house and the neighbor's house just for a little privacy. This jasmine will grow up all over this trellis and smell so good! I love the way it smells and the pretty white flowers that come up all over it.

Basil and Oregano

I purchased these little kits of Basil and Oregano in the Dollar Spot area at Target. They were $1.00 each and both came with pot, package of seeds, and soil. I was curious to see what happened and if they would really grow. The soil that came in the packet was like a quarter-sized hard pellet and I had to drop it in a little bit of water and let it sit for about five minutes. Once the pellet absorbed the water it opened up and was just like regular soil. Pretty neat the way it worked.

Last Saturday I planted these. I am amazed at how quickly they are growing! The pot on the right has tall, thin shoots coming up as well but you can't really see it in the picture.
There were so many seeds in the package that I didn't want to put all of them in the small pots so I planted the rest in this egg crate. They are growing just as fast! Now that I know they are going to grow I guess I'll be moving them into a bigger pot. I love watching plants grow right before my eyes!

Love my hummingbird garden!

I am fascinated with these hummingbirds. I put this feeder and garden up last Sunday (one week ago) and I have 3-4 hummingbirds eating out of this every day...all day long. I sat outside with my tripod and tried to catch a few pictures Sunday afternoon. This is the best one. The other pictures focused in on the background and made my feeder/hummingbirds blurry so I'll have to try again another day.

Hummingbird Garden

My dad is an avid gardener. Now that I have my own house I have been getting gardening tips (and plants/cuttings) from my dad. He gave me 4 shrimp plants to start off my own hummingbird garden. Amazing thing - when I was sitting in my yard the other day contemplating where to put my garden - a hummingbird was flitting around. There's already one out here flying around!

Yesterday Greg and I worked on getting these into the ground. There are only 4 shrimp plants in there and you can't see them over the white fencing but they will grow and multiply quite nicely (or so I hear...if I didn't screw anything up! LOL)
This is what the shrimp plant looks like when it blooms...kind of neat isn't it?

The Great Sunflower Project

I recently joined this - The Great Sunflower Project - by requesting a packet of sunflower seeds. I thought this would be a great Science project for Dakota and I for homeschool. The idea behind this project is an environmental study and we are supposed to grow these sunflowers and count the bees that are attracted to them. All of the seeds and educational materials will be sent to us. I've always thought sunflowers were so beautiful so I'm looking forward to growing some of these!

Square Foot Garden

Greg left town today on a business trip to South FL for a week. While he is away Dakota and I are going to attempt to build a garden. We've never done this before - I've been wanting to do this as a homeschool project the last several years but have never quite been able to get off my duff and get it started. However, I was encouraged after reading about Frugal Dad's Square Foot Garden Project and decided this was the year we were JUST GONNA DO IT! Stay tuned for pictures and progress report....