Backyard Garden Tour

As Summer slowly slips away I thought I’d share my backyard plants from this season.  I have enjoyed our yard tremendously this year.  Last year was our first Summer in this house and we added a few flower beds and planted flowering shrubs and trees.  This year we expanded those beds and I planted more.  We’ve been lucky that it hasn’t been an extremely hot Summer and we’ve also had plenty of rain so everything has flourished.

Lantern Turned Terrarium

I love TJ Maxx!  Are you a Maxxinista’s too?  I love to just stop in and browse, I find great inspiration there for home décor and fashion and sometimes I am lucky enough to find a great deal!  My local store has a really great merchandiser because the store always looks neat and is displayed nicely. 
Anyway…TJ Maxx certainly did not pay me to write this, I’m just a huge fan.  I was there Friday browsing and found this great little lantern for $20.

As soon as I saw this lantern I knew that I wanted to fill it with plants.  They had several shapes and sizes but this one was just perfect.  I loved the weathered wood and simplicity.  I found some small plants at Lowes Home Improvement.  I had two small pots that I had spray painted white a while back.  I simply sanded them a bit just to distress.

I also had some moss from the craft store and wanted to use that as filler in the bottom around the pots.

I simply repotted the plants and added them to the lantern.  It is simply charming!  Now is the perfect time to find tiny plants thanks to the popularity of fairy gardening.




I had so much fun with this I redecorated my little entry table…

Twice…

It’s nice to have a new item to adore every now and then.  Where do you find inspiration?

April

Succulents

Hello!!!  It has been too long!  I have been knee deep in packing and cleaning for the past two weekends.  Not much to blog about when that is your weekend project. 

Today I noticed that my pot of succulents had died since I left them out all winter on the porch.  Sorry no before photo.  My little cactus from Sedona, AZ was still alive so I went to Lowes and picked up a few more to refresh this pot.

That really prickly one is from Arizona.  I can’t believe it lived all through the winter outside.  My hands faired much worse while repotting, ouch!  Also a spider had made a nice home for itself in there, protected by all those pricks.  I had to clean the web off with a toothpick.  I added another aloe plant because those are always nice to have on hand.  Really wish I’d had that earlier this week when I burnt my arm with the curling iron!

Love how Abbie snuck into this picture  :)

In other gardening news, take a look at this picture….

This photo makes me  a little sad about moving.  I love our current yard and I worked hard getting the plants in front of our house looking good.  This particular area is just what I like with plants, it is thick with varying heights.  My peony looked so pretty just a week ago but still you get the point.  It took 6 years to look like this!  It is the one thing I dread about moving to a new construction house, the yard looks so dull for years. 

Then after all the hard work, you wake up one Spring and it looks like this :)

Happy Gardening!  Hope you are making the most of your Springtime planting I really miss it this year. 

Now back to packing….we have a month to pack everything up and get our minor repairs done around here! Busy Busy Busy!

April

Pinterest Challenge

I am pumped to have another Pinterest Challenge to link to….Thanks to Sherry, Katie, Erin and Ana. 

My sister-in-law Dana gave me a light bulb a few weeks ago and wanted me to try making a terrarium using it.  We had both seen a clip from CBS Sunday Morning on Terrarium's as well as tons of inspiration on Pinterest. 
This light bulb came from Dana’s Husbands Motorcycle & ATV showroom Cyclemax.  It is a larger commercial bulb, but still a tiny home for plants. 
I found my inspiration from two different pins Pinterest, one is a great video tutorial I’ve shared at the bottom of the post.  You can see the other pin site below too.  I tried to make a video of myself making this one for you guys but it was really awful…  I had to pause many times and you could see my double chin so that sealed the deal of it not making the blog :) 
Here is Finished Product!!
 


Step 1….
Gather your materials

You will need:
Plants…teeny tiny ones
Soil
Charcoal
Rocks or Pebbles
Moss

Needle Nose Pliers
Screwdriver
Long Tweezers or Tongs

Container (my choice, a light bulb)
Step 2…
Break the ceramic end out of the light bulb using the pliers and the screwdriver


I had to break out an additional glass layer on the inside of this bulb.

Step 3…
I had to pull out the insides of this bulb and it was NOT easy.   As you can see the inside was wider than the neck of the bulb and I thought I could squeeze it down with the tweezers.

But…I broke it!!! My one and only bulb!

But the insides came out easy :)

And luckily I had some super glue on hand.
After that small hiccup I started layer my materials inside the bulb using the long tweezers and a small measuring spoon.  Starting with pebbles, then charcoal, moss, soil, plant, and a little more moss.



After the plant was added I put a little more soil and moss on top and it’s all done. 

Click Here to see the Video Tutorial I found through my Pinterest Pin
I also “Pinned” from The Hipster Home –Check out this site for another cute light bulb Terrarium. 
Hope you enjoyed!

Tip:  The long tweezers came from PetCo pet store…they are actually called long tongs and are used to feed reptiles.  I tried the craft stores first with no luck and found the helpful hint online about finding these at the pet stores.
Be sure to check out all the sites above to see all the Pinterest Challenges :)
April


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The Slow Death of a Garden

Not exactly, but still I’m disappointed with the way things have been going growing recently.  First of all it is 100 degrees here with very little rain!!  HOT, but I really don’t want to complain…I would take this heat any day over a cold day any day under 60 degrees. 
Anyway…
First the squash died, squash bugs were the culprit.  Some plants still looked somewhat healthy, but there were literally millions of squash bugs so they were doomed.  I pulled them all up. 

Gross!

Secondly the cauliflower is not producing anything and they look pitiful.

Thirdly the tomatoes are having issues.  I have 5 varieties.  I talked about those here.  All of the larger variety have had issues, black spots on the bottom of some and the rest that have even gotten close to being ready to pick have been eaten by something, no idea what. The small ones, Black Cherry & Sweet Gold have done well and keep producing healthy fruit, I even had a caprice salad of sorts with these two that was great (see photo below).

 

Last, a glimmer of hope.  The eggplants that I thought were stumped in growth are actually Bambino eggplants.  I pulled out my seed pack to learn this (Duh!) even though the picture on the seed pack shows normal sized healthy eggplants.  I lost half of these because I thought they were not growing and I didn’t pick quick enough.  I did fry some last night and they were pretty good.  I should have a few more of these over the next few weeks.  

These are too yellow, past prime picking time.

Here is where we are today, a cluster of tomato plants and eggplants. 

Hope any of you garden growers out there are having better luck than me.  Did I mention, I am a farmers daughter ?!?  I should be better at this!
April

Outdoor Furniture Redo

My patio set was looking a little worn and beat up…


I sprayed a dusting of Rustoleum Primer on the flat surfaces because of some stains and rust spots.

I wanted a little more of a metal look but still wanted to keep it dark so that it didn’t really stand out on our deck because it’s so small.  I used Krylon Outdoor Spaces in Charcoal Metallic.

What a difference a little spray paint makes!  It looks brand new!

The cushions came from HomeGoods and the buoy was one of my beach finds seen in this post. I loved the colors of both and how well they went together and also how they matched my bonfire begonia. 

What have you spray painted lately?  I just love the way it will transform something so quickly, especially in 96 degree heat!
April 


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DIY by Design & Very Merry Vintage Style & My Uncommon Slice of Suburbia &Miss Mustard Seed & Ten June Blog