February 16, 2011

green thumb.

My mom is an avid gardener – vegetables, flowers, fruits… you name it, she can grow it. She’s pretty organic, has her own compost and even writes the newsletter for the gardening club. Given all this, you’d assume I have the green thumb gene, right? Well, I’m starting to think maybe I do – even just a little bit.

You see, we completely remodeled our home – inside and out. When we bought our house it was sad. It’s a 1950’s ranch style home but the previous owners decided they wanted to make it ultra modern which included painting over the beautiful original brick and ripping out all signs of life in both yards – adios grass, giant mature trees (makes me want to cry) and every flower. Oh, and then they just gave up so we bought a half modern and have traditional home with zero vegetation, ugh. (a lot of work? yes. all our friends and family who saw the home when we purchased it thought we were nuts. even i did.)

Slowly, we attempted to bring it back to life…. grass, planted trees and we laid pavers in our front yard to create a big patio and two flower beds. Last summer I tried “to garden” and make those flower beds pretty. It was miserably hot, the dirt was rock hard and filled with cement chunks from the remodel and I had no idea what I was doing. Needless to say, the flower beds didn’t look pretty long and I’m ashamed to admit I’ve let them stay that way for so long… overgrown with weeds and dead flowers.

So this past weekend, I gave my green thumb another try. The weather was beautiful and Danny was going to be working in the front yard all weekend (exciting updates to come on that) so I figured I’d join him. Early Saturday morning, I grabbed my mother-in-law and was off to Home Depot for flowers and bulbs.

I have to say, I really enjoyed planting and working in the flower beds. It was nice to be in the sun with the music on, working with the soil and seeing my flower beds come to life. Kinda cheesy, I know, but I can see why people like this. It’s not easy work, my lower back hurts and my fingernails are in desperate need of a manicure – but it was worth it.

I’m hoping the Arizona freezes are behind us and that I’m able to keep these flowers alive. I promise I’m actually going to try this time. Vicky helped me pick out hearty flowers that can tolerate the Arizona sun. We went with ranunculus, violas and snapdragons plus some Daylilly and Stargazer Lilly bulbs – I can’t wait to see if they bloom.

{space planning after we weeded and got all the dead Bird’s of Paradise palms trimmed}

{my slave for the weekend. she’d dig the little hole and i’d plant}

{now our drip system will actually have something to water}

{sneak preview of the next update… see the brick columns and new white gate?}

{the tings take on the front yard! danny on the fence, teri on the plants}

{and hunter… well, he kept us company}

{yay! pretty flowers under my window. love it}

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