Perennials Taking Hold

When we tore out all the old bushes and sidewalk in the front of our house, we knew we'd be left with lots of options for how to fill the space. I don't consider myself a green thumb, but after this year's garden and flower beds, I think I may be changing my mind.
 
I posted early in the spring about the flowers I was contemplating for the front beds. With a few minor tweaks and some fun new finds at the local garden store, I think it's shaping up quite nicely!

 


So you can see the layout of the beds.

Here are the only three annuals I planted for some immediate color and spread. I was afraid my perennials wouldn't be very showy this year...

Petunias...planted a mixed flat this year. Next year I'm going to go with
all dark purple or maybe orange. No light purple, white, pink or red.

 

Hot pink geraniums in boxed planters by the front door. I really like
geraniums in planters. But like I said above, next year no pink.

 

This was a really fun find at the local nursery. The common name is something like
"bat face" since the the Cuphea flower almost look like ears and a little nose.

 
And here are a few of the beautiful things happening right now with my perennials. I can't wait to see what next year has in store since this was just the first year of growth!

Foxgloves. I LOVE these!

 

Delphinium in a beautiful royal blue/purple. Brent picked this and planted it too!


 

We can't live in Colorado and not have the state flower. I also planted a
"lime green" columbine but it doesn't have flowers yet.

 

Another favorite for spread and showy flowers: Coreopsis.
We planted two of these since they look great and eat up space.

 

Salvia. Another Colorado staple. This is one of two we planted. The
first one almost died, but I'm nursing it back to health.

 

Coneflower: I was worried about these babies. They didn't look
great for much of their initial month. Now they're flowering!

 


Hens and chicks. I planted lots of these (along with ice plant) along the borders.

 

This is my very first Brown-Eyed Susan to flower. I notice them all over
Denver right now, so I imagine next year's plants will be much fuller.

Next year my poppies will likely bloom too, but they just weren't developed enough this summer.

I hope you're enjoying some color and flowers this summer!
Karli

Karli's Exterior Project Done...For Now

Ok, so here it is! The big reveal of our exterior project. By now you know all about the tree projects, the trim projects, paint choices and flower bed plans. It all came together in something I am really proud to call ours!

After all the old evergreen shrubs and bushes were removed (and the giant cottonwood stump was ground out), we started planting flowers. Finally, the flower beds are making all that effort worth it! The flowers are blooming and spreading and, hopefully, growing strong roots. I picked mostly perennials so those beds won't require a ton of work to look great year after year. Here are a couple of progress pictures of the beds.


After the sidewalk was poured we had an even larger space to fill next to the driveway.



 

Earlier in the summer, this pic was taken before we put in edging bricks to define the bed. We also planted a couple more things on the left part of the bed.

We picked Sherwin Williams Pewter Tankard for the body and it is exactly what I wanted. While we were painting my sister and brother in law kept calling it brown. I called it gray. PERFECT. I wanted a gray that didn't turn blue or pink. I wanted it to be almost brown.

This shows that side flower bed filled in. The plants are still growing.

We used Sherwin Williams Extra White for the trim for a really nice crisp pop. And then I ordered black shutters from Home Depot, so we didn't even have to paint those.

And I got my lime green door!

The bench mom made looks amazing on the front porch. As do the black chairs I picked up earlier this summer.

Love that bench! You can also see the door better here too.

I can't wait till the flowers fill out a bit more. (And it will be nice when we re-sod the lawn next year)

Here's the full "after" view with the before picture too. What a difference!

We still have all that empty space where the tree stump was. You'll probably see more posts about that next spring!

Just a reminder of where we started. It was all worth it!

Displaying Found Junk On A Patio Wall

You may remember in an earlier post the damage that was done to the roof of our garden shed when Dwight and I took down part of an aspen tree......well the weather has now improved so we decided to repair the damage that we caused.  We replaced a board and the roof shingles.  Fixing all of that meant that we needed to get to the inside walls of the shed, locating nails.  Needless to say, we found it necessary to empty the shed to get to those walls.

As we sorted through 30 years of stuff, I found some "junk" I had forgotten that I had.
It is all "family stuff" that I had hauled back from Oklahoma, knowing some day I would find a place for it.  Here is the saved stuff we uncovered in the shed.....


These are old cistern cups, used to bring water up out of a cistern or well. These were my Grandpa Ray's and had been used on the farm in Okla.

 

A rusty old saw blade and a gear.

                                     

These are a pair of rusty old hames, part of a harness which would have been used with horse drawn farm implements. These were Grandpa's too.

           

This is an old drawer front I found who knows where....... You can not see it but it has the letter "F" stamped on the front.
It will be great to hang BBQ stuff off of the handles, or not!!!

I hung all of this assorted "found junk" on the wall outside on the deck.  I already had the grapevine wreath hanging there, so I just incorporated it all for a unique display.

I bet I can truly say that no one else has a wall quite like ours!

           
I would love to add a pillow to the chair, but the squirrels have been known to destroy things on our deck.  I also need to re-stain the deck later when it gets a little warmer, but decorating this wall inspired me to look forward to spending time out here this summer. 

I want to try planting in the cistern cups, too......I think they would be great for succulent plants, like hens and chicks.  I have one more set of these that I'm saving for Karli.....she might want to do the same thing.  If nothing else, they are great conversation pieces!  Did you know what they were?

Happy Deck Time, Kandy

A Spring Antique Sale

As some of you may recall, in my former life, I was an Antique Dealer. When the store closed I took my inventory home. I have had one big sale here at home, but, for the most part, I have just been sitting on all that stuff.

I keep my "stuff" in my barn, where I have a showroom set up.

I did a show last weekend, a money-maker for a ladies organization raising funds to offer scholarships. I paid for an 8' space, set up my booth area, sold my antiques and vintage items, and then I donated 10% of my proceeds to the ladies club. It was for a good cause and a fun outing since I haven't been playing with "my antique stuff" for quite a while.

A good friend of mine, who is also an antique dealer, joined me in the venture. She brought her items to add to mine. Then another friend, also a dealer, gave us some of her items to sell as well. It was a joint effort!

We started setting up by creating walls with two sets of shutters.

Love using these to divide areas as well as hanging on.

  
The "girly" side of our booth was the perfect spot for hats and frilly feminine items just right for Mother's Day giftgiving.

Love the black and white

 This is a close-up of an old cabinet door. I painted the center with Chalkboard paint and added vintage hooks.

                        

 A broader view of the "girly" black and white side. You may recognize the chair from an earlier post.

           
The old metal display unit is perfect for hankies and gloves. I used this at the store for several years and people always wanted to buy it.

This metal rack was originally used for candy in General Stores.
You can see more white ironstone on this earlier post.

A closer look at one shelf. We even sold some of the burlap flower magnets. See our post on how to make these.

               
This part of our booth was dedicated to vintage gardening.

A potty chair from the 1950's holds a potted rose plant.

             
Layering on top of the enamel top table with an old wood box allows for more garden items.

Love the pink and green for Spring!

                              

The garden items even filled the floor.

                
It is still early for "real" plants in our area, however the silk ones made everyone think of Spring.

The little potted flowers were just too sweet!

                    

 The little watercan holds my business cards.

              

Would you believe we did not plan to wear similar jackets!

             
The sale was not quite the sucessful day of selling that we were anticipating, but we did have fun planning, hauling, setting up, visiting with customers, tearing down, boxing our stuff back up, and then hauling it all back home. (Really!!!)

That is the way it goes sometimes!     CARRY ON!!!

Happy Spring,
Kandy