April showers bring May flowers (and fun happenings!)

April showers bring May flowers...and boy are they in bloom!

I can't believe mums that I had planted in the Fall are starting to bloom again!

I got all my planters planted on our back deck...

added a fun new fella from Hobby Lobby (on sale of course) to our landscaping near the deck steps...

our knock out roses are gorgeous right now and seriously the most perfect pink roses...

I always keep some in my Coton Colors vase and changed out the attachment too!

Lillies and daylillies also in bloom too...

and May also brings a whole lot of happenings!!!! We're wrapping up the last few weeks of school and Cade has field day, muffins with mom, funnel cakes with dad, etc... and we're also hosting a shower here this weekend + have Mother's Day, Chad's bday and Memorial Day coming up. Here's a look at our kitchen chalkboard (...aaand this is all I could fit! HA) 

Excited for even more fun!

how does your garden grow?

Just thought I'd update how our landscaping is coming along! Talk about a JOB. I can't say that I do the majority of the work, Lord heavens no. While I like to plan/design the layout of the landscaping and buy all the pretty flowers, Chad is the one who's doing the hard work of planting them and keeping them alive. HA! It's a team effort, right? ;) 

We are by no means experts on gardening and landscaping, but Chad really does work outside nonstop and I'm so glad he's got more of a green thumb than I do. Sometimes he will get up at 6am to do things in the yard before work just because he knows he won't have as many hours of daylight when he gets home. It definitely takes dedication. The boys and I do water flowers almost nightly and with this "thick of Summer" heat we've had the past week, it sometimes takes twice a day. Still, there's some that are just not thriving. SC July heat can be brutal. We do the best we can and have really enjoyed watching the blooms come and go all Spring and Summer!

Here's a look at our window boxes Chad made for his shop and while some of the more colorful begonias are hidden in this pic, it's all really blooming like crazy and growing so fast. 

Our coneflowers that we planted last Summer have really been my favorite this year. They grow kinda wild and crazy (and TALL!) and first start off looking like weeds. My mother-in-law nearly pulled them up early Summer! Trust, it's easy to do. Once they bloom though, they're ah-mazing. We have them all over Uptown Greenwood so I knew I wanted to give them a shot. So pretty in the evening sun...

Chad is really into caladiums (elephant ears). I do love the pop of color...

These are all on either side of Chad's shop garage door...

Then behind the shop (well, to the side) he planted more caladiums in the shade...

Daylillies are a no brainer in the South. They always THRIVE, with very little maintenance. That's my kind of flowers let me tell you. This light pink colored daylilly we planted this year is a favorite...

and sometimes things bloom when you least expect it. We planted a dying mum from our front porch in the ground here just to see what would happen and bless pat, it BLOOMED in the Spring! What the world? It's HUGE.

Then Chad also planted a banana plant, one of the most hardy plants you can plant. They also need little water and holy cow, this is how much it's grown JUST THIS YEAR. It's right outside our kitchen bay window and it''s grown even more since I've taken this pic. Not going to lie, when the wind blows sometimes and I catch it swaying out of the corner of my eye, I nearly freak out and drop my early morning coffee. Sheesh. 

This spike in the middle of our planter was an annual, but survived our Winter and came on back this Spring. We added bright purple wave petunias + sweet potato vine, which is one of my favorite combinations...

As for the little fence and wagon wheel (from my dad's old house) behind our house, we pulled up the dying azaleas that just did not do well there and transplanted them back in more shade behind the shop. We purchased two HUGE hosta plants from our local nursery and filled in the rest with perennials on sale from Lowes! 

Speaking of lilies, I mean come. on. These gorgeous pink lilies are hands down, my favorite. They smell divine, grow so big and look gorgeous in arrangements. 

We did plant a hydrangea bush for the first time this Spring! It started out with pink blooms that are now turning blue because of our soil. I've always heard how fickle they are and how much maintenance they need, so I'm just over here crossing my fingers it lives and doesn't get too much sun. 

Lastly, we planted seeds and bulbs two Springs ago, the first Spring we were in the house and some of the gladiolas finally came up this year! Gorgeous pink, of course my pick. We had a bad storm that made them fall over to the ground, so I clipped them off and stuck them in a pitcher on our kitchen table...

We also purchased two crabapple trees this year for outside our master bedroom/bathroom window and a Japanese dogwood for behind the house. We just try to invest a little more every Spring, since we certainly couldn't do all at once, and we try to only spend money on trees and perennials! My best advice is to search the clearance racks at Lowe's. Yes, the clearance racks for PLANTS. We lucked up this year as our local Lowe's had overbought and had sooo many perennials they needed to move. We got an entire buggy full one time for $40 bucks. Sometimes if they don't look as well, you can always take them home and "revive" them! It's worth taking a glance and starting there before paying full price for basically the same exact flower, whether annual or perennial. 

The only things we'd like to really purchase now would be crepe myrtles for behind our corner fence and maybe a few big magnolia trees. Then after two years since moving into our new house and starting from scratch on landscaping, we feel like we'll be DONE! (Ok, maybe not ever fully 100% done but you know what I mean )

PS. If you have any tips on keeping hydrangeas alive and/or favorite (easy to maintain) flowers/shrubs, definitely let me know! 

DIY window boxes

Chad just measured the size of the two shop windows and built a very plain, solid window box out of 1x8 pine and added pieces to make sections inside (although not even necessary). Literally just a bottom and four sides. All you need!

then I gave it two good coats of exterior black paint and my father-in-law also made the brackets. Chad drilled holes in the bottom of it and here's how it looked mounted. Yep, they just drilled straight into the vinyl siding.

Next, it was time to plant! Charlie is thinking "Really guys?? MORE flowers????"

I laid them out to get an idea of how I would arrange them in each box...

We used Rex Begonias in the center, Tuberous Begonia and New Guinea Impatiens on each side. Then for the "spillover", Easy Wave Petunias, Variegated Vinca and Blue Daze Evolvulus. 

I tried to find annuals that required no more than 6+ hours direct sun. Most are 3-6 hours, but the petunias are full sun. However, they likely thrive anywhere! That side of the shop gets morning sun then lots of afternoon shade. 

TIP: We put empty water bottles and rocks at the very bottom, then layered the potting soil to give it better chance to drain. Also he put a thin layer of black mulch on top to prevent potting soil from flying everywhere when we watered it.

...and here's how they look today!

I'll report back end of Summer. Fingers crossed they THRIVE!

how does your garden grow?

When the crevices of my hands were not black with dirt (gloves are overrated), I broke out my "big camera" instead of my iPhone this weekend to snap of few pics of our hard work. 

Ok 80% my husband's hard work but hey I have planted plenty of flowers on my own and even know how to work a post digger now in no time. We had our home professionally landscaped in the front last Summer right before we had Charlie, (hello "push present". No, not a joke) and he mulched around the entire house and planted three tea olives on each side. That's it. 

We have since added rock around the entire house (thanks to some leftovers from Chad's sis & bro-in-law. Thanks guys, we take anything! ha) and we've added shrubs around the back deck and perennials in the back and along the side closest to our garage. Aka: what we see the most. I pulled up all of our old Fall/Winter flowers on our back deck/front porch and replanted for Spring. We landscaped a bit around our driveway entrance (much more to do), planted more leland cypresses along our property line, Chad built two decorative fences and we added a ton of flowers there and he's added to his azalea flower garden in our backyard. Oh and planted a weeping willow, japanese maple, and two fruit trees. So yeah...pretty sure we don't want to plant anything for a long time...

but come Summer I can't wait to see the fruits of our labor. Literally. 

My mom has always had a green thumb and one of the most gorgeous Southern porches around complete with two swings and the prettiest window boxes you will ever see. 

Chad's dad grows the absolute biggest ferns ever and they always have had pretty flowers. We had an in ground pool at our old house and for years we spent a LOT of time and money on flowers/landscaping around the pool and honestly, we loved it. It was sometimes a pain to keep it all watered but I loved having pretty flowers everywhere and I guess moving into a newly built house, it wasn't easy to start from scratch but we knew we had to start somewhere. We have even recently had a little "push" to finish up and add on to this "landscaping" of ours since we are hosting a couples shower for friends this Saturday! I may have had a few anxiety attacks since signing up for this {kidding!} but it has definitely got our tails in gear and made us work even harder. Now we can kick back and enjoy it all Summer long...(and hopefully years to come)

both the welcome sign and the pineapple flag holder were brought over from our old house

Now I by NO MEANS have a green thumb or know really anything about landscaping, BUT I do love decorating and I mean basically this is decorating your yard, right? I can share some of my favorites. One favorite perennial being salvia. This stuff is awesome! Fast growing and hearty. 

I love evergreen shrubs, but I have to have a pop of color. Trying to plant perennials each year so that in a few years we can have enough where different ones bloom different seasons - Spring, Summer and Fall - so you have color basically all year.

Another favorite: a good ol' Southern must have...daylillies...

We pulled up a ton of daylillies from our old home and transplanted them last Spring. This is how big they've gotten within a year and still growing... (excuse the grass that needs to be cut, Chad is waiting until right before the shower this weekend to do all of the last minute weed eating)

We also brought over a ton of old "treasures" from my dad's shop, like this wagon wheel, and Chad built the decorative fence behind there too this year. So far he has built four fences on the property. He is out of control.

We couldn't leave these concrete planters at our old home either. These planters have been on my grandparents porch steps for as long as I can remember. Then they were moved next door to my dad's (which became our old home...). They are a part of my childhood and we have two flanking our small back deck.

Sweet potato vines + verbena or wave petunias + a little spike = my go to container plant combo.

Southern Living says you need 1 Thriller (the spike, for height) + 1 filler (the verbena, to really fill the space the most) + 1 spiller (the sweet potato vine, to spill out over the container). It's an easy combo to remember and always looks great, no matter the size of your container you just add or take away accordingly. Can't wait to see this sweet potato vine take off...

just like this creeping jenny (loves shade or part sun, whereas sweet potato vine loves full sun) has taken off on our front porch with these impatiens. Obsessed with creeping jenny. We have some planted in containers and in parts of our landscaping. It's an annual, but fast growing you can enjoy it longer!

We've revamped our front porch this year and above is a sneak peek. I got the last two "finishing touches" for Mother's Day to complete my Southern dream porch so I'll have to share that next. Until then,  let me get back to watering these flowers {FOR THE LOVE....}