My Annual Gardening Brag :)

Every year, Hubbs and I spend hours upon hours cleaning out our flower beds, planting new flowers, dividing established plants, mulching, weeding, roto-tilling the vegetable garden & planting the veggies, etc. We also spend hundreds of dollars on new plants each year. My God, we need a 12 step program. It got so bad this year that we nervously joked, as we were walking out of the last nursery we hit with our huge bootie of gorgeous perennials & annuals, that we could very well lose the house because we had just spent some of the mortgage money.. but hot damn it'll look fantabulous at the Sheriff's Auction! He's always had a green thumb and has always had flower beds and gardens throughout his life. I, on the other hand, never had either. Oh sure, my mom would buy a few impatiens every year and plant in the lil flower bed outside of our back porch, but that was it. The closest we ever had to a garden was an Italian plum tree, which died when I was in my mid-teens. So, when I bought my first house I promised myself that the yards would be beautiful and, lucky me, he feels the same way. So keeping up the tradition of showing my blogging friends some of what we've planted and cared for - the rest of this post will be photos of this year's beauties. Happy Summer to all of my northern hemisphere friends! To everyone else who are starting (or will be starting in the near future) to experience the colder temps, I hope these photos warm you up a bit! Enjoy :D Sweet William Columbines My absolute favorite Coleus "Saavy" LOVE the Autumn-like colors =) The other plant with Autumn-like colors that I covet, but still don't know what the hell it is. :D Peony - they got HUGE this year Snapdragons Two of my 3 smaller variety Dahlias (my favorite flower), the 3rd was just budding when I took these photos, but I'll post later because it's gorgeous! "Lady Luck" is what the tag said, not sure what kind of flower this is though. 1- My herb pot. This year, lots and lots of basil, chives, tarragon, thyme and sage. 2- Big old bucket o'cilantro and smaller planter is oregano. 3- Pineapple sage. 4- Lavender in a bed that obviously needs weeded again. Also that lil curly looking vine coming through our new fence? A gorgeous Clematis that he thought he killed last year when he put the new fence up.. now it's sandwiched between the old and new fences - so he's going to take some boards off and try to bring it inside the new fence. Oops a daisy! And my most favorite photo of the summer - our new Zinnias. Do they rock or do they not rock, people?! They totally rock. :D More pictures here xoxo

My Two Favorite Spaces

As I mentioned a few days ago, the beautiful Ilva has made a request to see pictures of our kitchens. I am only too happy to oblige as I heart my lil kitchen to bits. :D This is my kitchen's west wall looking out to our backyard. When we first moved in, I hired my friend, Beth, to paint a few rooms in my house - and the kitchen and dining area were the first two she hit. I wanted a Tuscan feeling - mainly the look of plaster chipping off a brick wall with the brick peeking through. I also wanted lots of curly whimsical vines and grapes. She gave it all to me and I was very pleased with the results. =) Below are just some different views: The east wall - the fridge is now barely noticeable as the front and sides are pretty much covered up by pictures of my nieces and nephews! This angle just shows that my kitchen opens up into my living room. And this picture is my living room looking into the dining area - which seems to be the only picture I took of the dining area. If you look on top of the bookshelf you'll see a picture of Chloe when she was a puppy - she use to literally fall asleep in her water bowl. hee! Below are pictures of my office - my 2nd most favorite place in my house =) The office has a nautical theme and Beth painted the walls to look like wood planks. Yes, you don't see much blue wood around, but I saw a picture of a room with blue wood walls so I hadda have it. :D This is my desk, btw. If you look closely at my monitor, you will see a picture on my desktop of a breathtaking view of an italian hillside. This picture was taken by Ilva many months ago (back when this picture of my office was taken) and I fell in love with it so much that I made it into my wallpaper so I could look at it alla time. This is Hubbs' tiny lil desk, with my old Gateway PC - that he uses to play online poker and read up on where the good fishin' is happenin'. hee! So there you have it.. the 2 spaces where I spend all my time. Now it's your turn! Show us yours! :D Whoops! I forgot to include the e-mail address - so please send your permalink to Ilva so she can add it to the round up! =) xoxo