Gardening

What’s Blooming: My Spring Garden 2023 in North Texas

Welcome to spring in North Texas, friends!! I am so excited to share what’s growing outside, the process of adding mulch into the flower beds and a progression of blooms… Come see!

At this point now, it’s not really “early spring,” but I liked the title so there’s that! These photos were taken about a month ago now ~ March 15th. It’s interesting to see how just a few short weeks into the season, so much changes.

I planted no tulips in the fall but in the back flowerbed behind our bedroom, these beauties came back all on their own!

Yoda is hanging in there and has really enjoyed the long spring. He enjoys warm afternoons outside while I pull weeds and baby oak trees (definitely weeds here in our yard). He is having more and more bathroom issues, so lots of laundry washing his many blankets, carpet cleaning, mopping the kitchen.

I need to invest in doggie diapers, lol! 😉 He’s a good boy, though, and he enjoys his cuddles…

In the greenhouse shed

At my favorite grocery store, Winco, I found bibb lettuce heads with their roots still attached, so…

I planted them! I tried cutting them off and letting them re-leaf. I had mild success. I tried the same trick with a celery stalk, but the local squirrels or rats knocked off my wire cloche and ate the three.

Not sponsored: I ordered three chicken wire garden cloches last year from Gardener’s Supply. I really like them!

Linda Vater has some new ones available on QVC, if you need some, too. She has one which is taller (the 22″ one), which I think would be good for protecting tomatoes. They were on sale but I didn’t get one then. Next time!

The baby bibb lettuces I sprouted worked really well, but it turned into more of an experiment for this year. I had issues with fungus gnats… Definitely a learning process! 🙂

I am able to get sprouts growing, now I just need actual planting beds and a small cold frame.

Mr. Ethereal has mentioned we ought to build a wooden garden bed. Hopefully this summer.

I might need to totally rearrange the garden with more garden beds for veg! XD

ranunculus ~ trying them this season!

You know how the grocery stores carry some plant bulbs and corms? I am trying ranunculus but found out late that they like really gritty soil with lots of drainage. I need to invest in gravel for planting here in North Texas!

Here is a pot of ranunculus which I purchased at a local garden center in California ~ probably Lowe’s, Home Depot or Armstrong Nursery in Temecula. I didn’t know that you could save the corms and repot them the next winter, so I tossed them out… Live and learn! 😉

Even if my experiment doesn’t quite work out, I’ll dig up the corms and save them for next year.

***

Pelargoniums

Yesterday (4/29/23) I created a really gritty, well draining mix for some geraniums from my sister-in-law Jodi’s garden in Rancho Cordova, California. These guys are really used to super draining soils, super dry air compared to Texas’ humid summer air, so I need to be especially vigilant about NOT overwatering, even when it is hot here in the summertime.

Last year, I killed the bunch my mother-in-law had brought the winter before when she moved to Texas by overwatering and not having super well-draining soil. We had a sprinkler issue, too, which contributed to their demise. Those geraniums’ parents were originally from my old gardens in Southern California.

I am getting the hang of growing plants here in Texas, but I am still learning.

These should be hardy geraniums but in the temps here getting down to the single-digits, I’m not sure. I will put these guys in the shed overwinter. 🙂

***

The citrus trees

Would you believe that a rat, or several, gnawed on the bark of this poor mandarin orange tree’s branches?? Yes! I had to immediately put bird netting all over it and pin it to the dirt to keep them out. I also pruned it back, fed it heavily to give it strength to recover from this devastation.

The sweet Japanese maple I bought half-price last year was girdled the same way and I was NOT going to let this happen to this sweet tree. I also moved it out to a sunnier location in the yard. It’s leaves are growing back nicely and it has finally put out blossoms and little dark green orange buds are just forming!

The two lemon and the new lime trees are also doing well. They are all tented for now. 😉 Happily, pollinators are still able to get to the blooms. Hoping for more fruits!

The garden now

Two weekends ago, we drove down to pick up our car which had been in for repairs, and on the way back we stopped for groceries at Costco.

Costco had delphiniums for $16.99!!! If I had had unlimited money, I would have bought at least three plants. I am happy with the one beauty I was able to purchase…

Our roses have had a beautiful first series of blooms. They are all really still babies (second season in the ground), so I expect next year to be their magical year to shine!

Here is a David Austin rose Gentle Hermione.

A really pretty soft pink rose fading to cream. I just went out to look at it and all the blooms have faded. I’ve been feeding regularly with hopes of getting them to go for it with continuous blooms. 🙂

Along the south wall, the Generous Gardener is stretching its legs with longer canes this spring. Here are a few buds on it.

At the front of this south-facing bed a couple of the lamb’s ears are shooting up their spring blooms! With a few oak babies mixing in… Always weeding this year! ;)’

And the smaller Spanish lavender is just finishing up its first blooms while the larger lavender is just coming in (left).

The tiny white with yellow center wildflowers are done for the season but if the grass gets long later on, they will pop up now and again. You can see the two lavenders in the background.

And I think I’ll sign off here with a shot of David Austin’s Tranquility, a rambling rose. It is just stunning…

Thanks for stopping by today and I hope your garden is blooming extra beautiful this season!

Spring hugs,

Barb 🙂

Home Decor, Pinterest Challenge

A Spring Basket for Our Shed Door

Happy Pinterest Challenge Tuesday, friends! I missed the cutoff for this month’s official Pinterest Challenge with Cindy of County Road 407 and friends, but I thought I’d share my post with you as if I were with the main group anyway…

The challenge this month was to create a spring door basket and I immediately thought of creating one for our shed’s entry door. I love its nine lights ~ so similar to the window panes here from the post Simple Front Door Decorating Ideas by Karen from Sanctuary Home Decor.

The basket Karen created here has blush peonies combined with deeper pink tulips, dusty miller and what looks to be fresh eucalyptus leaves ~ really beautiful!

Realistic faux blooms

For this basket arrangement, I chose four soft pink rose buds in place of the inspiration photo’s tulips. For the peonies, I used several shades of faux pink rose blooms plus dried baby’s breath and eucalyptus sprays.

These realistic blooms came from Ralph’s, a local grocery store near where we lived in Murrieta, California. These blossoms even have realistic thorns which are poky just like the real thing along their stems! They were the perfect choice to take the place of peonies, plus, they fit in with my style.

Adding a sweet sign was the cherry on the top. 🙂

Just planted ~ one Proven Winners Supertunia Vista Bubblegum! Eventually, it will more than take over this pot.

That’s my version of this month’s challenge!

I wish we hadn’t been so busy with car troubles, two IOOF meetings last week, a dog who wakes up every night (seven times last night… 2 1/2 hours I was awake) making me a groggy human during the day… I would have remembered to shoot these photos a lot sooner and make the cut-off! Oh, well! Next time. 😉

Enjoy the big tour, friends. I’ll link over to Cindy’s blog for everyone on the tour. <3

Big spring hugs to you,

Barb 🙂

Gardening, Holidays, Home Decor, Pinterest Challenge

Two Spring Chair Ideas to Inspire!

Welcome, dear friends!! This month’s Pinterest Challenge has us creating a fun Easter-time Spring Chair. Yes, a chair ~ totally fun and unexpected! Our host and friend Cindy from County Road 407 has found a really fun idea from Jamie at Anderson + Grant!

Our inspiration ~ what I see

Welcome to everyone coming over from Michelle at Thistle Key Lane for the first time! Isn’t this beautiful antique chair so pretty with this gorgeous woven harvest basket filled with tulips, a sweet rabbit scouting the scene, and a soft white afghan cascading out of the basket and over the chair Lovely!

I loved it so much that I thought It’d be fun to create a couple of spring chair ideas to inspire you in your springtime decorating.

Love Cindy’s springtime Pinterest Challenge graphic!

I shot these photos with my cell phone so they are a bit fuzzy and I apologize for that. Since then, I’ve shot only with my Canon. 🙂

My first Spring Chair & Basket

I began this sweet vignette with a Longaberger cake-carrying basket set onto a chair I bought from my longtime friend Kathy. I recovered it with fabric from a dress I wore back in the late 1980’s to one of my brother’s weddings. I filled this basket with a small glass cake plate used as a riser for Momma & Baby rabbit.

Nestled in with our rabbits, I’ve scattered some soft green shredded paper used as Easter grass, glossy bright plastic Easter eggs, and a spring bouquet of mums and other flowers my husband just bought me! He’s a keeper… 🙂

The last thing I added was a lace curtain I hang up in our bedroom every year for summertime. I love its softness plus it added dappled light. Here this curtain adds its softness and texture to the scene!

Now let’s check out our second Spring Chair out in the Garden!

Our garden

Over the past four seasons, I have worked really hard creating small planting beds around one of our backyard oak trees, under the primary bedroom window and out here along the edging of the western and southern fencing.

This spot is against our new garden shed/greenhouse (how I am using it) and faces south.

Let’s check out Chair #2!!

Since my roses aren’t in bloom yet, I brought out some dried roses and set them inside our flower girl’s basket.

This outdoor spring basket vignette has lots of texture

This chair came as a set with a small end table we picked up at last summer’s end-of-summer sales. I call it my Titanic chair…

All of the dried florals add their own special fluffiness and refinement…

The sun was rapidly going down when I came out to film after school last week. It had rained the day before so everything was fresh and clean! And here is our second chair.

One of our cement rabbits came out to play, too. A little nod to Jamie’s sweet cement rabbit! In the background, one of our David Austin climbing roses is being trained upwards on jute twine. Fingers crossed it grows more canes on the other side!

The vintage tablecloth takes the place of the white afghan in the inspiration photograph. Sorry the whites are blown out. I had some trouble getting the light balance correct while photographing.

And those are my two second chairs for today’s challenge. 🙂 I hope you’ve enjoyed both of these chair stylings! If you like what you see, please consider subscribing to my blog and following French Ethereal on my other platforms. Thank you for stopping by! <3

Up next is Niky from The House on Silverado and her green vintage chair looks absolutely adorable with its floral bouquet and sweet rabbit! Please see below for links to visit everyone on today’s tour.

Happy spring, friends!

Barb 🙂

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter
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Summer Projects: Painting the Little Porch Chair How-2

Happy summer to you, dear friends!!! I am enjoying this time off from work and just this past week I worked on another summer project ~ repainting our little metal chair which currently sits on the front porch…

This little chair was sold as part of a patio set which included two metal chairs and a small metal table back in the late 1990’s/early 2000’s. I believe I found it at Big Lots for around $99. They used to sell them every year and I waited for a set I liked before buying one.

A Little Fall Decor Past and Present ~ the only post I had showing this chair.

The set held its paint for a good 25 years or so and was a nice green over black. When we were getting ready to sell our last house in 2015, my husband sold the table at one of our garage sales (a mistake!). The other chair had the back legs broken off several years prior and had been tossed (also by Hubby) at some point.

I looked through all of my old photos from the beginning of FE eight years ago and I didn’t find “the chair” when it had paint, but I DID find our teak bench! (2014, from my old iPhone 4,
I think) It needs repainting again, too.

The paint on this remaining chair had seen better days, even in California, as it sat outside in our backyard or on the covered front porch all year long (there’s a photo somewhere with a small stack of pumpkins on this chair).

With Texas’ strong rainstorms, the remaining paint had been “sandblasted” off most of the chair, lol!

So it was a good candidate for a refresh…

Giving it a good clean!

How to begin?

I began this project with a good wipe down with just a clean damp rag, rinsing it out with the hose a couple of times. This removed all of the cobwebs and most of the dirt. I set the hose on “jet” and sprayed out the rest of the debris from underneath in the upper chair leg crevices. 🙂

After a dry in the hot morning sunshine, next I applied some elbow grease and a good scrub with a wire metal brush. This took off the biggest chunks of leftover paint and now there was clean metal ready to paint!

Lay down a paint cloth or old bed sheet (shown here), lay down your chair, and shake your paint can well for at least two minutes. I turned mine upside down, too, and continue shaking. Really helps mix the paint well!

Lightly spray over the surface of the metal using short bursts of paint and very quick sideways strokes as you spray. This gives a nice coating without paint “running” or “pooling” in cracks, which I wanted to stand out anyway and not be all gooped up.

Paint as much of the chair in this position, let dry at least 2 hours. This allows for painting as much of the chair at one time as possible. Some people like to stand up their chairs to spray paint, but this is what I like. 🙂

Love how the white paint picked out the filigree work on the chair!

Stand chair up after the appropriate drying time (per paint can manufacturer) and paint the other side of the backrest plus paint over any missed spots of exposed metal.

Paint a light second coat and let dry again.

***Tip: When you are done painting, turn the paint can upside down and spray a little out of the can to “clear the tube.” This makes it a possibility of saving the leftover paint and using it next time. Otherwise, the tube is often clogged and you’ll have to throw out the remaining paint.

Loving this chair’s refresh!

And that’s all there is to spray painting metal chairs!

Sometimes you have to tape off parts, if you are doing multiple paints. I tape off the teak bench and I’ll be doing that soon to repaint it.

Happy painting!

Barb 🙂

DIY Projects

Happy Father’s Day from Daddy’s New Shed!

Happy Father’s Day, y’all! A week ago, I was with my mother-in-law at Costco and saw a shed I’d been looking at for a year… Well, that day I pulled the trigger, had two 9′ long boxes unboxed and the contents loaded through the rear window of my unopening-rear-hatch Sequoia…

It’s not much of a Father’s Day gift, but definitely necessary to free up the back patio and get the lawn mower out of the garage. Hubby needs more room to move around in his workshop. 😉

A little out of order, but here is Hubby at the end of Saturday this week hosing off the back patio thereby removing six months of winter dirt and grime and the remaining leaves. He finished the small shed then spent the rest of the day moving things into it while I worked out in the garden on the newest planter area.

Last week, though, chose to be the first really hot week of the year in North Texas thus far, so I spent several hot days indoors putting on parts to each panel of this new shed. A pretty big chore, surprisingly!

This is going to be where we store all the stinky things: lawn fertilizers, bug sprays when absolutely needed, and the lawn mower.

Pole vault, anyone?? Actually, Mr. Ethereal needed to have a bit more leverage to get this old fence post out of the ground. Who knows how long they had been there?!

Mr. Ethereal began early last Saturday morning to build the new shed’s base.

Hubby fitting the 2×4’s in around the 4×4 exterior.

By noon, the plywood was down and after stopping for a bite of lunch…

My MIL came over and brought homemade potato salad, baked beans and some hamburgers which I cooked on Herbie, our little grill, we began the shed build…

By 6:00pm, we were “done in” from the 105 degree heat (41 deg. celsius), but all of the shed was up and the roof on with just a few bolts still needing to be tightened. 🙂

Here’s what’s now inside:

Charles is a trooper for moving all these things inside yesterday! He finished installing the final few things which needed to be bolted-in (two brace supports which solidify the front door and transom area, and putting up the back shelf).
He’s really good at organizing it all… It looked photograph worthy! And so I did. ;D

Now we have the Big Shed and the Little Shed… 💜

And now we have somewhere nice for all those lawn necessities. And my husband is wonderful for building this for us!

I hope your Father’s Day weekend has been a good one. Hubby even brought me flowers when he got a haircut this afternoon. He’s a keeper…

Happy Father’s Day to you all,

Barb 🙂

DIY Projects

Working on a Shed for Gramma

Happy Wednesday, friends! Sorry, no Share Your Style tonight. I didn’t bring my computer and we have been building a shed all day.

Hubby went and picked up a small U-Haul this morning just after 7:00am. By 9:00am, he had it loaded with packed boxes which have been on the back patio since New Year’s, a bucket of tools and drills, and a pile of lumber!

My job most of the day? Scrub and clean every last panel and part of our old 7.5’ x 7.5’ shed… But, I am happy to say that Gramma’s new shed (my MIL Gini, btw) is mostly done! It’s almost 6:00pm and Charles is just screwing in the last of the roof bolts and screws. Woot!!! 😊

Hi ho, there!

Now to get the door on… ☺️

Always one.last.thing. 🤣 Anyway, I hope to get Share Your Style up later this evening for you. I will send out a notice when it is up.

Enjoy your evening!

Hugs,

Barb 😊

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Prepping for the New Shed

Welcome back, friends! I have been away working with my sweet Mr. Ethereal getting our backyard ready for the new shed’s arrival. It may come as early as this Friday but probably next week sometime. Weather is wrecking havoc on shed deliveries but that has given us time…

Old Shed, the Before

This is how the backyard looked up until this past weekend. I forget when I took this here in the springtime but it was after one of the monster rainstorms!

How it looks now

We are still getting rain about every three or four days or so, but the yard has dried out, which has made the lavenders and the Mediterranean-type plants (rosemary and basil) are much happier with the drier weather. (They sure don’t like wet feet!)

Before taking the shed apart, all of the bicycles, chairs, garden supplies, tools and such were placed all over the patio and yard.

Yoda is excited that he can walk where the old shed was. Here is the new panicle hydrangea beginning its bloom!! It is a lovely hydrangea…

When we began around 8:30am, it was in the low 80’s but quickly jumped to mid-90’s. It was hot out… Mr. E did a lot of work; he is a good sport about these things!

It’s plywood base is leaning up against the back fence now.

Here is when we had most of the shed taken apart. My job was to mark all the inside panels so we can put them back together in right order again, and to hold up the sides as each panel was unscrewed.

I went this weekend and picked up 8′ pressure treated cedar to replace the boards underneath for the old shed. Since it is only 8′ x 8′, we will put it along the side fence to hold the lawn mower, weed eater, edger and the tools which would “leak.” I also picked up two new 4″ x 4″ Around it I’ll put in flowers and make it cute. 🙂

The City did not approve us putting the new shed closer to the side yard (surprise!) but we did get our money back from the application. I have been so upset over this that I still need to resubmit plans for the new shed to go where the old is was. I just haven’t felt like taking up the discussion with the City again. Their rules are ridiculous…

We literally have 25′ of yard that: either “isn’t our own” (10′ easement) yet we take care of it, water it, mow and edge it; and another 15′ that we can’t put a permanent structure on. Apparently that is so they don’t have to pay someone to have something taken down if they decide to take away our side yard when building a wider road.

Honestly, I hate city planners at the moment…

Using my pole vault pole-tying skills with these timbers…

Charles worked really hard moving most of the tools and things out of the shed. I could only do a little at a time because I was still pretty ill with this Post-Covid Syndrome (PCS) virus… However…

Today I am finally feeling better!

Turns out it I am negative for: Covid, strep, flu and Mono. I had a mammogram yesterday and a few lung x-rays last week, so we shall see… Hopefully it is nothing and I’ll just get better over time. This new PCS can occur even as late as 9 months after the illness and it feels like you have Covid again (at least I did). I wondered if it isn’t the body learning to “over-react” to any illness, like a cold.

Most of the shed panels…
Hubby taking a much-needed rest…

Well, that’s where we are with the tear-down of the old shed and the new shed still coming! Now we wait. 🙂

Happy summer, friends,

Barb 🙂

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Backyard Garden + Shed Plans…

We are coming into the home stretch with getting our Garden Shed and Fence plans approved, friends! This coming week I go in to visit with the City Planning Department and see if we can nail this thing down before summer break begins…

City Ordinances

Most of this spring, I have been sending emails back and forth about the fence and shed plans. Part of what the City needed to see was something I didn’t expect… Anyway, I will get to that in a minute, but here is a photograph of our Proposed Shed plan marked out and a 15′ line behind it (all in yellow measuring tapes).

Most of us know that in cities there are easements of land which we all take care of but we don’t actually “own.” We don’t pay taxes on that part in case the city decides to widen the roadway, dig up utility lines or put in water drainage systems underneath. For ours, that is a BIG 10′ section of land.

Whenever you wish to build or place a shed that is larger than 120 sq. ft., then a permit needs to be applied for and the city planners need to approve your plans. It’s all for safety reasons and in our case there have been concerned about wind ratings for the structure and its tie-downs since there can be Cat. 1 tornadoes and straight winds whipping through the area!

We just need 54″…

What I didn’t know is that the City also has a “No Build” area another 15′ from the property line… That’s 25′ from the main road that we aren’t supposed to build anything major on. To me, that is just silly and a waste of valuable property. I see sheds in homeowners’ sideyards all over the city so we are asking for a Variance.

In my many emails, I’ve found the City Codes for adding structures, and have addressed why we should be allowed to allowed to put the proposed shed here along the back fence but close to the side fence (which will be moving out 3′).

Our original proposal was to move the fence out five feet but the closest stake to the fence is 3′ away, hence we can only move the fence out three feet.

Here are the surveyor stakes laid out and you can see the narrowing which follows the curve of the main street, more or less. We have left all of the surveyor stakes until we begin putting in posts for the new fence.

Our Proposed Shed ~

Our Garden Shed will look very similar to this shed with the dormer windows but in a medium grey with white trim. I have gone back and forth between a white roof and charcoal. What do you think?

Here are a couple of other sheds Wolf Valley Buildings makes which have the charcoal roofs. Ours will be metal.

What we are having made is called a Cabin Shell, like the top photo. It will have upper storage inside and I am really excited about it! I’ll move the potting bench inside and we are planning on having electrical run to it. Wolf Valley is building it with electrical outlets, overhead ceiling boxes and an outside electrical box built with it.

Now if the City will approve our plans and allow us to put the shed where we would like it!

Can’t you just see the new shed down there? This would be one of the nice views towards it. It will angle towards the house and our dining room a little so it can be seen from the patio and dining room.

Be prepared to wait

When asking for a Variance, all paperwork has to go infront of the Planning Commission for approval and this can take some time. The paperwork on the city website says 1-2 months as the commission only meets once per month.

So when I go to meet with the Planning Technicians this week, I’ll be bringing all of the paperwork I have so far and hopefully they will use the emails I have forwarded with all of the photographs, so the Planning Commission will be able to see what we are trying to do. 🙂

Prayers are much appreciated,

Barb 🙂

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Our Fall Garden and Potting Bench

 

Welcome to  our autumn garden! Fall’s cooler days have brought about a renaissance of blooms on the roses and all of the plants have perked up. My joy this weekend has been photographing the season’s changes and a bit of decorating on the potting bench…
 
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Friday after work, I stopped by Lowe’s garden center and picked up more cement pavers for the pathway to match the ones put in by previous owners. I also picked up more bricks to use around and under potted plants here in the back garden.

 
 
Hubby and I went out to lunch on Saturday and he found some much needed sneakers at our local sporting goods store. We then stopped by First United Methodist Church’s annual pumpkin patch, of which I totally forgot to put any pumpkins in the above display… 🎃
After two more trips to Lowe’s on Sunday, I was finally ready to decorate our potting bench for fall! Charles had seen some mini bales of hay (identical to these) last weekend so I looked for some to bring home. These are perfect for fall displays and will be useful for packing around plants as protection as the nights really begin to dip into the 30’s and below. 
 
The Generous Gardener is just beginning its fall blooming… It is a soft
pink normally but is showing off as almost totally white. It is also the
lead photo of this post. In the middle of fighting white flies and
spider mites…
Seventy five degrees was the high on Sunday with Saturday’s high coming in at just over 80 degrees. It was an absolutely perfect weekend to be out of doors working in the yard! 
 
Remember in the olden days when we called this Indian Summer? That cooler time between the heat of summer but not quite the cold of later fall? 
 
It is still my absolute favorite time to garden… Not politically correct anymore to call it that anymore, but I still think of it this way.
 
I moved Sceptre d’Isle back to its usual spot near the brick wall and close to our Garden Maiden. I need to look for new plants to try here in this area since the two camellias, which did sooo well last year, croaked either from over-watering or just from the stress of summer’s savage heat and high humidity.
 
I lost one small rose, one of the new ones I had bought this past spring, also due to the summer heat. Thankfully, the older mature roses all made it just fine, other than spider mites (which I didn’t catch early enough).
 

 

We have been back building out in the garden as we move around the corner of the house out into the side garden. There is an area at the far back corner, which since the addition of the water softener unit last year, seems to me to be a perfect place for utilitarian uses. 
 
I’ll share more of that area later this week as we finish up this newest project but here’s how the pathway is coming along. You can see how “new” the pavers I just purchased look in contrast to the other older ones which were sunk into the ground. Time and rain’s muddiness should even that up, though.
 
We moved the potting bench on Saturday to protect it from the coming rainstorms. Eventually it will go inside the new larger shed, when we finally decide which one we want.
 
As summer sales happened in August, I found a couple of chair cushions I liked so although they don’t exactly fit the bench, they are very comfortable and add a nice navy and white to the area. The colors repeat the colors in the weave of the bistro chairs, which looks smart.
 
It was fun to look around for items to place out on the potting bench to dress it up! I found the larger French pot at Hobby Lobby early in the summer and it matches another smaller white one I found several years ago.
 
So that’s how things are going in our neck of the woods. How is your fall gardening going? Anything new growing? Have you begun decorating for fall and/or Halloween?  Let me know what you’ve been up to in the comments below. 💝

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
Happy gardening,
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Our Late Summer Front Entry

Summer is still going strong here in Texas and my plants are hanging in there so I thought I’d share a little of our front entry with you today…

Yesterday I shared our front door hanging basket for 10 on the 10th and now I can share the rest of the patio! I am excited for fall so this is a happy late summer post with just a hint of transitioning.

I have been consistently watering every two to three days so our roses are doing much better this year here in the heat of summer than last year. This rose in the large green urn is named after Miranda Lambert. It is really pretty when it blooms well! Right now it is just fighting the heat.

Late this spring I brought the new plant stand around from the backyard and put in some impatients in the top tier and our small fern behind it. The boxwood growing in the French style pot is just getting large enough and to the size I want that I can begin clipping it. I am not sure whether I want to form it into a ball or into a conical Christmas tree shape. Conical is all the rage right now.

I had herbs in the cute rectangular pot but the heat (and my overwatering…) killed them. C’est la vie! It happens. I’ll try again when it cools off because I really like having fresh oregano. 

Maybe you have a trick for getting your herbs to grow well? They were burning up in the backyard so I brought them around front thinking that would help. The two flowering plants in plastic pots will go into that other planter to replace what croaked. 🐸

Next year I think I’ll get more impatiens and Super-tunias/Superbells to plant in bigger pots that would like being outfront. What does well in your gardens this time of year?



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