Saying Goodbye to Summer...

I cleaned out our flowerbeds this weekend.   With only a few exceptions, all our plants had been frostbitten and were looking not so pretty anymore.  As much as I dislike winter, I can't deny that it will arrive at some point lol, and I figured it was time to get this part of our yard ready for the pending cold. I figured it out the other day that we enjoyed watching our plants grow for over 5 months...not too bad for the Prairies!

At the end of September, while things were still growing, I snapped a few shots of our flowers...I'd say our rookie year was a success :)

 The pots on our front step... I loved coming up the walk and seeing all the color...

 I will definitely plant the front bed differently next year... It looked nice but it certainly didn't have the "pop" that the back bed did...live and learn :)

 

These were the pots on the back deck...when I look back at photos of how small the plants were that these started from...such an incredible process :)

 Our back flower bed turned out even better than I had dreamed..it ended up as a mass of color, where you could hardly tell where one plant ended and the next one began :) 

This delphinium actually got blown over in a bad storm mid summer and the single stalk broke... then over the next few weeks the base just kept growing and before long we had 5 new stalks blossoming!  This is one of my favorite flowers in our garden...

This dahlia plant was one of the plants that had been chowed down on by a mouse and eaten nearly to the ground...a little fertilizer later and it was bigger than a basketball with blossoms almost as big as my fist! 

 

So much color...exactly what I had envisioned that first weekend in May when we planted these tiny flowers...

So long summer...

A Few Additions to the Dirt...

At the beginning of the planting season, my dad gave me a great piece of advice:

"Watch the greenhouses at the end of their selling seasons.  Sometimes they will clear out their left overs really cheap just to get rid of the last of their inventory. Some years I've bought those plants and with a little TLC they have been the nicest plants in my garden."

Up until this past Thursday I have done a very good job of staying away from the greenhouses.  You see, if nurtured, I think I would have a serious addiction to buying flowers.  However, I had Thursday evening all to myself as Justin had already gone out to the lake that afternoon with Doug & Sandy.  {I had to work on Friday so I couldn't meet up with them until after work} So I was curious just when this "clearance" might happen.  Well I wandered into Canadian Tire and found myself in the middle of discount heaven!  

I was so proud of myself when I walked out of there about a half hour later with more than enough plants to fill in all the bare spots in our flowerbeds... all for only $11.76!!! Many of the plants were 25 cents, the perennials were 50 cents and the most expensive pots were the geraniums at a whopping $1 lol! If I had paid full price for everything, the bill would have likely been at least $80 or more!  I spent the rest of the evening planting until it was too dark to see the dirt.  Some of those plants are already taking root and flowering... sigh...I think I should live someplace where I could garden all year long :)

The front flower bed before the new additions

A few close ups of some of my faves :)

They are a rag tag group of plants...but with a little TLC I know they will be amazing!

The back bed BEFORE (left) and AFTER (right) 

(left pics) a few of them had already started to bloom by the time we got home on Sunday!
(the small plants on either side of the petunia)
(right) the Virginia Creeper has really just taken off... can't wait till it's completely covered and green!

(I can't believe how much things have grown since my last post Some Dirt of Our Own! Love, love, love it!)

Some Dirt of Our Own...

Last summer when we started house shopping (thank goodness that is one thing not on the list this summer! too much stress!) one of the things that was really important to Justin and I was that the house have a yard.  Living in the condo, while there were times the maintenance free life was nice (aka we didn't have to shovel the snow!) we both really desired to have some dirt of our own... we wanted to be able to plant things - and hopefully not kill them - I wanted colorful flowers, Justin wanted a lawn to mow....

The house we fell in love with was, for the most part, a blank slate when it came to the yard.  The front  yard had grass and a few shrubs in the flower bed and the back yard was a big pile of possibility :)  Within weeks of moving in, we laid sod in the back and Justin couldn't wait to mow all the grass in the spring.  And plans were made for a flowerbed against the back deck.

Fast forward to May... the weather is finally getting nice and the garden centers around town look amazing with all the color and greenery...and I have itchy feet :)  Neither of us had ever planted flowers or really had a yard to take care of so we were total rookies.  We asked lots of questions of our family in particular who have the greenthumbs we hoped to inherit and went shopping.

We've learned a few things in the two months we've been the proud owners of our grass & flowerbeds:
1. A field mouse who takes up residence under your deck is great entertainment for your dog who watches as the little varmint gorges itself on your growing flowers.
{side note: we caught the mouse and all the plants that had literally been almost entirely eaten have started to grow back and are looking great :) }
2. We've figured out which seed & fertilizer works best to fill in those empty spots you find when the snow melts... like where the rabbits tried to dig under the snow all winter...
3. It's a wonderful treat when your family shares their gardens with you!  The tiger lilies and irises that my dad gave us are doing amazing in the front and the Virginia Creeper Sandy gave us is showing great signs of life and I am anxious to see it continue to grow!
4. Spending time on a Saturday morning weeding is actually relaxing and not nearly as tedious as I may have thought at one point in my life...

I can't wait to see our yard take shape in the coming years...Justin has done an amazing job with our lawn {I'm allowed to be biased but I think it's the nicest grass I've ever seen}...so far we haven't killed anything...maybe we did inherit the greenthumbs after all...

(sorry for the poor quality of the photos...I just quick snapped these with my iphone)

{left}The delphinium that had been nearly eaten to the ground is almost ready to flower
{right} For some reason the mouse didn't like the daisies...not complaining lol!  Still the trap sits...just call it insurance ;)

The Virginia Creeper... so excited to see how this grows!

The back flowerbed that Justin built this spring...
it's a little hard to see the plants through the fence but I'm very excited at how everything here has rebounded 

The pots on the back deck

The front flowerbed... love how green everything is!

The Tiger Lilies {left} and the Irises {right} have settled right in in their new home...
I can't wait for the Tiger Lilies to bloom!

{left} This shrub was already planted when we moved in - we wondered if it would even grow but it just keeps getting bigger and the little white flowers are a new addition this week!
{right} The colorful pots that sit on the front step as you walk up to our door