I pride myself in being a fairly domestic person. I love baking, cooking, decorating, organizing, and yes, sometimes even cleaning (yes, I know I’m a freak). But clearly I’m a failure in one department: gardening (ironic as I come from a long line of farmers). You may remember when I tried to plant my front beds back in CA…well I killed those. And this little vegetable garden? Well it stayed alive for awhile while the Hubby was taking care of it, but he left and then I killed those plants, too.
So I am pretty darn excited that I have kept the plants I’ve planted here in my front bed alive for FOUR WEEKS! Clearly I just needed to cut down the number of hours I work a week from 40 to 20 in order to keep a garden alive. Just kidding…I’ve really just been watering them every day. Who knew water was so important to keeping plants alive?
I also spruced up the front porch area of our townhouse a little. Here’s the before picture with just our doormat and a wreath:
I’ve been on the hunt for a small bench to go here (kicking myself for not getting one at Target before we moved…oh Target how I miss you so!). I found one in early May that I liked at a home store here but it was $200. Eek. I was finally making peace with the idea of splurging on it, when I went to Costco (yes, we DO have a Costco here!) and found a bench I liked almost as much for $50. Sold! So here’s the front porch now (please ignore my reflection…):
Oh, I also made those little house numbers (because I couldn’t STAND the icky ones that were there before). I’ll show you how I made those later this week. And last but not least, you may remember that we have this funky little outdoor storage area right at the front of our house:
That storage is vital for bikes/strollers/trash cans, but I hate that you see it right when you walk up to our house. So I bought a few magnetic clips, a canvas drop cloth, and a few hanging baskets…and this is what I came up with:
I’m pretty happy with how it all turned out. Ollie apparently is, too, because he goes out and plays here every chance he gets. Yes, Miles likes it out here, too, but at the moment I took this picture he was pushing his walker down the sidewalk, and nearly into the street. I am such a fabulous mother…
*Full disclosure, one of the plants in these hanging baskets–the one on the left–is dying. I think it’s because the baskets cause most of the water to leak out. People with green thumbs: do you have any thoughts on how to prevent plants in hanging baskets from drying out?
Watering every day sounds a bit much. It doesn’t rain every day on the farm and when we have a rainy season where it does rain nearly every day, plants die-too much water. On the basket plant, you much put a plastic bag liner to hold in the water, or some mulchy soil that will hold the water. But again, don’t over water.
Bonus: Now your gates are reminiscent of Japanese shoji screens. Functional AND great cultural reference at the same time!
Well…I’m actually watering more like every other day. My friend Emily’s mom advised me to put a cloth in the bottom of the container, so I’m going to try that to help hold the water in.