Happy Mother's Day!

What? It isn't Mother's Day, you say? Oh, well, I got my Mother's Day present yesterday. Brad let me buy flowers for my yard! Well, flowers, trees, shrubs, etc. I'm so excited!

My yard angel (aka Debra) gave me a tour of her yard and gave me lots of ideas. Truthfully, before we even went shopping we'd probably spent hours in planning. We arrived at the store, and the fun of looking around began. So much to chose from! I didn't have the biggest budget in the world, so when the first smoke trees we saw were close to $90, I foresaw some problems. I really loved choosing the plants though. I wanted to bring them all home! I have lots of places to put plants, as we were pretty much starting from scratch, but I needed to buy just enough to get some color and interest as this is a work in progress. Next year, more can be added.

In order to work within my budget, we bought smaller size plants. It allowed me to get more and get more variety. Now I just get to wait patiently for them to grow.

So, this is what I got:

1 Blue Prince Holly
1 Blue Princess Holly
1 Variegated English Holly
2 Dwarf Spruce
2 Young Lady Smoketree
1 Molten Lava Flowering Crab
2 Red Heart Althea (hibiscus)
2 Red Prince Weigela
1 Purple Butterfly Bush
2 Lavendar Doll Daylily
3 Prairie Blues Little Bluestem
7 Cleome (Sparkler Blush, Cherry Queen, Sparkler Lavender)
4 White Nancy Spotted Dead Nettle
4 Um, I can't find the tag, but are the same color as the nettle, only triangular
pack of Celosia

So, all of that and some peat moss and I only went $30 over budget. Not too shabby!

We got started getting the plants in their places and even managed to get a few planted before Brad had to leave for work. That's when it got crazy. C found holes filled with water to be quite irresistible. She got pretty muddy. She thought my white shirt made a nice canvas for her muddy hands. I think D got a picture or two of me where you can see it.

After a few hours and lots of craziness with kids running around, we managed to get all of the plants in. It took a lot of bugspray too. And we still got some bites!

It was fun because I think we had probably 10 people stop to tell us what an amazing job we've done with the house. We get a lot of dog walkers and occasionally a few bikers that stop to compliment us, but we had a few that actually stopped their cars to tell us (really! check out D slideshow). Most of these people we don't even know, or we met because they frequently stop to compliment us. It's fun. I'm excited to see the changes as the plants we put in mature. Of course, for all things plant the kudos go to Debra. She put in hour upon hour in planning, shopping and then planting. Her knowledge was invaluable and I know it wouldn't have been the same without her. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU! Every time someone says how wonderful our yard looks, I'm going to think of you. :)

Now, on with the pictures. The first slide show has the pictures that I took. The second, D was behind the lens. It has a ton of pictures of me, which is quite rare. There aren't a lot of pictures of me. And for good reason. But, now that I've lost 40 pounds, I might as well put some up. Yes, I'm wearing my 40 pounds ago pants, but it isn't like I want to ruin good pants! Might as well wear pants that are too big, right?