Our little piece of backyard heaven!

While growing up, we always had tons and tons of flowers in the yard.  My mom had (has) the greenest thumb, and could grow anything.  Our yard was always bursting with color and greenery, and I loved it.  For the past two years, we've been working a lot on our yard to make it not only aesthetically appealing, but a place where we want to be. 

When we moved in, it was horrendous!  The yard was a frazzled mess of gross weeds, hundreds of cigarette butts, Popsicle sticks, candy and food wrappers, chicken bones, bottle caps, random nails and screws, and overall, a big fat yuck.  I spent an entire Saturday wearing latex gloves and carrying a big contractor bag picking up all of this trash.  Just cleaning up the trash, then mowing and raking the yard made a huge difference.  From abandoned lot status to this... in two years!

First is our awesome little vegetable garden.  We're growing tons of tomatoes, two types of green beans (Romano and Blue Lake), zucchini, cucumbers, broccoli, and a few types of herbs.  You can also see (if you look very closely) along the left size are grape vines that we're attempting to grow up the fence. And on the upper right corner of the photo, you'll see the corner of our flower bed.  This is a work in progress, and I'm attempting to use my limited (but growing) knowledge of flowering plants to create a bee-attracting garden. Bees = pollination = successful gardening!

This photo is of the patio we put in last spring.  The material of the patio is a crushed granite that is also what our driveway is made of.  We were having problems with our former asphalt driveway leaking into the basement, as the water had no where else to go, and the asphalt was angled into our house.  Once we ripped up the asphalt and put in this fabulous permeable driveway, the basement has been dry as a bone!

We scored the great furniture over Labor Day weekend last year.  Nothing says end of summer like new outdoor furniture!  It's Amish-made, solid wood and was purchased from Springdell Farms, who was selling off all of their furniture stock, as they did not wish to remain in that business any longer.  We paid a great, but fair price for it, and it fits perfectly in our space.  We had already planted the hydrangeas on the right/top, and the hostas to the left.  It's a great little space.  I'll make sure to post a photo of the hydrangeas when they are in bloom.  Right now, there are a few little blue flowers, but when they really get blooming, they're gorgeous!

More to come... have a great day!