Rosemary and Hydrangeas

My mom has huge rosemary and hydrangea bushes in her yard. The flowers are now their fall/winter red and green. I can't believe they are still blooming this late in the year!
Reddish one:




Reddish-greenish-brownish one:




I love their colors! I also love the look of rosemary sprigs in bubble vases!




But by far, my favorite is how the rosemary looks in my mercury glass vase:




It's so festive to me! It looks like little evergreen trees.. When you don't have native evergreen, rosemary is a perfect substitute. And the smell is amazing!

Succulents!

I've been in love with succulent plants for forever. They are so cute and mini plus easy to maintain. This summer I planted all my outdoor pots with succulents and before they get put up for the winter I wanted to revisit how good they once looked!

Aloe, chick and hens, and jade plants are among the plants I used.

The picture below is the arrangement on the front porch.

Central Park!

Going through my iPhone photos this week and noticed some landscapes that I needed to show off.

I was in New York, New York last January and took these pictures in Central Park. Can you tell how freezing cold it was?? The coldest I have ever been!

 I would love to frame these photos and do some sort of photo collage on my wall. Which wall though?! I'm out of wall space already!

Let It Snow!

I cannot believe I am even saying this, but I woke up to snow this morning! Ummmm, ya,  it was 75 degrees last week?! Anyways, the snow was totally unexpected! I snapped a quick shot of it coming down in huge fat flakes out my back door... Please ignore the messy backyard! There was more accumilation than this picture is showing, but I had to hurry and get out the door becuase I knew traffic would be a beast!

Happy Snow Day!

Feature!

I'm so happy to announce that I was featured today on Better After!

Well not me personally but my ugly oil pipe fence before and beautiful new fence after!! Check it out!


Better After is an awesome blog that doesn't beat around the bush. It cuts right to the before and after photos of different projects! Love it!
 
Thanks again Better After for my feature!!! I added one of your buttons to my blog so my readers can easily check you out too!

Punkin'

Hope you all had a great weekend! I just wanted to show you what I got this weekend! I think they are really cute!!

It's almost Halloween!!

Rock It Out, Now Rock It Out. Yes I Rock It Out!

My rock flower bed thingy was finished this weekend and I cannot take all of the credit. I had three bags of rocks left to pour on and I went to a see a friends baby and came home to it being magically done for me!
I didn't take a before before photo, but I did have during photos that probably looked worse than the actual before photos. Well maybe not, imagine this mess below plus over grown plants and a whole lotta weeds.

Before/During/Muddy Mess:

After: so fresh and so clean, clean:

First I pulled out the massive amount of weeds that were in the flower bed. I then cut the weed blocker tarp into shapes around my rose bushes, liles, and crape myrtle. (Don't mind the chewed siding by the doggie door. That is getting replaced next!)

I cleaned and trimmed up all the existing plants that I wanted to keep.

Then I started pour the rock. I love how it instantly gave me a beachy feel!

I noticed early on in the project that I didnt have enough of the Mexican river pepples (the grayish color stones), but those bags were $15 vs. the $4 bags of pond rocks (the brownish color stones).

So I decided to make a sort of a "river" running through it look.

Do you see the "river" ?

That way I was able to use less of the expensive Mexican river stones (gray) and more of the more cost effective pond stones (brownish).

I did really like the Mexian river rock better, but I just decided that fifteen bags X $15 each = was not in this budget.

I do like how it turned out and I am happy to say I haven't seen one weed yet! (Plenty of falling leaves though, ugh!)

Let me know about your Rockin' Out projects!

River Rockin' Out!

I decided to finally tear out all the weeds in my back yard flower bed and pour in pretty new river rocks in their place. The rocks are providing the double duty action of looking cool and blocking out future weeds. In my nit witty head I envisioned pretty stone beds with ornate flowers and plants equally placed at exactly four inches apart.

Photo courtsey of: Shed Style

I also saw pretty contrast of cool gray rocks against lively and vibrant green plants.

Photo courtsey of: Silk-Flower-Smart

A place where there were no weeds or unsightlys in sight.

Photo courtsey of: Shed Style

 I worked tirelessly for five hours last Sunday. I cut weed blocker tarp into  intricate shapes and sizes to go around the existing plants. I made a trip to Home Depot where I hauled twelve heavy bags of river rock, (I guess I should say Riann hauled them, but I was there cheering her on) off the shelf, into the car, then out to the back yard. I made very good progress in those five hours, silly me I thought it would only take one! Nit wit I know! I did make a muddy mess but it's all cleaned up now! So after all that then I finally realized I actually needed fifteen heavy bags of river rock, not twelve, so I quit. Role model I know, but it was getting late, Home Depot was closed and I was oh-so-sore.

Stay tuned for my before and after shots of my Rockin' River Rock Flower Bed with no weeds. It may take me a while to get it posted because I have come to realize that I strained my hamstring during my five hour river rock romp. So it is going to take me a while to put the extra three bags of rocks out. Epsom salt baths every night and I'll be back out there this weekend, I swear!

Lonny!

Ok, I just found my new obsession. It is this new online mag called Lonny. Too bad it only comes out once a month! (I think, I don't read, I just browse pictures.)

Weird name I know, but once I started looking at it I was hooked. It is currently free, but I don't know if it is going to stay that way. I don't read things other than blogs!! I just look at pictures, people!

It is a mixture of Martha Stewart Living, Lucky, Country Living, and Veranda all in one online, paper free magazine! If you have time check out the pages. I am a magazine junkie, and this lil' ol' website tided me over for a while today!

If you peruse on over you can see pictures like: This beautiful, my perfect wedding reception setting,  table with lanterns and wire chairs!

Or this amazing black and white bathroom. I am obsessed with silhouettes and cameos!

I also love that big old sink and the black and white together. This bathroom is a dream!

Let me know if you love Lonny as much as I do!

Fence After!

Sorry to keep you waiting, but I finally have my pictures uploaded from our beautiful new cedar fence. It smells and looks so good! It took about a week to tear down old fence and install new fence and it was so worth it!

Here is the oil pipe leaning fence before:

And the new straight cedar plank board-on-board after:

And the retaining wall spewing bricks before:

And the new not spewing anything but just a good looking stone wall after:

Our poor neighbors view before:

And now their new view after:

The front of the fence during the process:

And now a pretty new after shot:

The board on board really helps with our dogs not teasing the neighbors dog and also we feel like we have more privacy.

Check out the storm clouds coming this way while I was taking the after shots! I love dark skies!

Hope you enjoyed the before and after photos of our new fence. We really enjoy having it! There were a few bumps in the road, like a few cracked and mis-matched planks, but all were taken care of by Maurice the landscaper! Our neighbors are so jealous and are asking me for his number!

What landscaping projects do you have planned this fall?

More of our fall projects to come, stay tuned!

Fence Before

I finally started another house project. Only took me two years, but this time it's not me having to do all the physical labor! Our fence has been in need of repair for a while. Tate and  Diesel are rough on it, they bounce off of it barking when they hear another dog or the garbage truck. Oh and they also love to dig under it and try to escape. They taunt and tease the dog that lives next door, (also the neighbors that live there). So with big missing slats, nails sticking out everywhere, and rotted away wood we decided it was time. We had been punishing our neighbors enough! 
Several fence quotes later, which varied sometimes as much as $4,000, we finally decided. We met with the landscaper and he wanted to get started the very next day... Which didnt leave us much time to talk to our neighbors that we share one side of the fence with. We wanted to make them aware that we were going to be tearing that fence down and we also wanted to try to talk them into sharing the cost of that portion with us. It only seemed fair since they get the benefit of using it too, right? What do you think?

The Lean: The Oleander has gotten so big that its pushing out the fence. (In the alley that's how we find our house though! The fence thats leaning out is how we know it's ours!)

Pretty rough looking and damaged.

The railroad ties retaining wall is falling apart and spewing these mystery bricks. The bricks were left by the previous owners I'm guessing and were now falling out of the backyard thanks to the dogs digging.

One culprit caught on film: The Oleander

(If you look close enough you can see our neighbors nice new-ish fence in the background, they must hate their view out of their back gate.)

The posts are old oil pipes. All of our neighbors had these crazy stories to tell us about the original owner of the house, Robert. Who sounds like he's a quirkey character.  He installed the fence himself and salvaged these old, eight to ten foot, oil pipes from a junkyard twenty-something years ago. He sunk them in the ground four feet with cement and then cut them all to size. The neighbors told us that Robert told them all that the oil pipe posts would not rust, well he lied.

Our landscaper was shocked and surprised at the sight of those things and told us he had never seen anything like those old "fence" posts before, he wanted to replace them with new treated steel for a better look....Little did he know that they were sunk in the ground four feet with cement. I kept that part to myself.

So stay tuned for the before and after shots of our old oil pipe fence! Oh and incase you were wondering... Our neighbors agreed to help us pay for the shared portion of the fence! We are lucky duckys!