Good morning! One of my new favorite hobbies is gardening and I am so excited with how our garden has been doing this year! When we purchased our home in 2013, the yard was overgrown and very neglected. The previous owners rarely did any sort of yard upkeep and it definitely showed. As we started to get the yard in order, we discovered lots of awesome plants hidden amongst the weeds. My mom is a gardener and has been teaching me a lot since we purchased our home. She helped my husband and I turn one area of our backyard into a gorgeous garden oasis! It was a lot of work and is still an ongoing project as we continue to transplant and add new plants to the area. You can read more about our garden transformation here! Below you can see the difference between 2013 and 2015.
While we are still working on our little garden area, we have also been landscaping the rest of our yard. When we bought our house, there were neglected garden beds along every side of our house and a few other small areas. We have now tackled almost every area with just a few more to go. The majority of the plants were transplanted from my mom’s garden and we are thrilled they are doing so well in their new location! We have yet to purchase any plants, but I have quite the wish list going. This year we added mulch, which our neighbors were nice enough to give us when they had their stumps ground up. It is a thin layer, but it makes a huge difference to me!
This winter my mom is going to show me how to start plants from seed. All of the balloon flowers in our yard she started from seed years ago and we moved them to our yard from her garden. I’m really looking forward to learning how to do this and I’m excited at the prospect of adding new plants to our garden!
Here are a few pictures I have snapped around our yard throughout the summer. We still have several plants that have yet to bloom, including some of my favorites, like our turtleheads :)
Garden Tour
Our tree peony is one of our first plants to bloom in the spring. It is also my favorite plant in our yard. We transplanted it from my mother’s garden and it is absolutely gorgeous when in bloom.
The garden in late May. You can see the peonies are in bloom. We have 14 peony plants. We are planning to move some of the plants that are too close to the tree to a sunnier location this fall.
Sarah Bernhardt Peony
Sweet Marjorie Peony
Our Big Smile daylilies were in bloom by the 4th of July. I finally put the butterflies up. The tutorial and free pattern for the butterflies can be found here.
Big Smile Daylily
Salvia – loved by many bumble bees!
Salvia and Little Princess Spirea
Sedum
Our balloon flowers bloomed mid-July. They are so fun! We have some white ones as well and plan to put them all together next year.
Our yucca plant. We found several yucca plants around our yard. This one hadn’t bloomed since our first year living here, and it bloomed with just one stalk. This year it bloomed again with six stalks! It was beautiful. This yucca, along with two others, line our patio. We also have sedum and lavender planted around the patio.
These Annabelle hydrangeas came from my mom’s garden and are so pretty.
Weigelia
I hope you enjoyed taking a look at our garden. We have lots more work to do but I am really happy with how things are looking! If you are interested, check out my other garden-related posts! You can also follow my garden board on Pinterest where I’m constantly pinning new ideas for our yard!
I’ll be back next Monday with a sewing tutorial and free pattern! :)
