My yard has been one of the biggest overhauls we’ve done to our house to date.. being that the bathroom still isn’t done.. (insert frustrated sigh here). And it’s been a rollercoaster. When we first started redoing our front // click here to see the first phase, and here to see the second // we planted some promising plants that we thought we could maintain and keep alive… notice I emphasized thought, because honestly I really thought we could do it.

The Texas Sage, supposedly the most hardy of plants in Texas, did not stand a chance against us. We over watered it. Then we underwatered it. Thought we had brought it back to life just to realize that it was actually just dead leaves on the sticks of what used to be a promising little shrub. We gave it about a month to come back to life before I gave up and bought more plants. I became engulfed in the idea of huge rose bushes like my nana has, an did ALOT of research about the different types, what variety grows best in our zone, and finally came upon the beautiful, whimsical, “Iceberg Roses”. I was set. Searched high and low. Unfortunately, by the time I went searching for them, all our garden centers were out, no local nurseries had them any longer, and I was SOL.

I settled.. *sigh*.. for the white ice cap roses, which are beautiful, don’t get me wrong, I still very much love them, they just aren’t as lush as the Iceberg. I also pulled in some Saliva, and Spanish Lavender, because I felt the need to fill the space some more. I did not, however, anticipate the size of my blue daze flowers, and they are just… huge.

 

With the fullness of everything in my front little garden right now, I’m pretty satisfied with how it’s all turning out! I will definitely need to prune and cut back my Salvia, because it would grow as tall as my house if I let it, I think. And for some reason, that right tree is just sad and dwarfy.. but not dead!

And as you can see, the house is still not painted (we’ve actually decided on a lime wash since it will add a level of sturdiness to the house with it’s calcification process, and we’ve noticed some spots that need repair // so.. blessing in disguise I guess), and our door is being custom made so it won’t be here until after my birthday at the end of August.

But, we’ll be adding the sconces soon, and that’ll be so exciting! Gotta hurry though, because our little Mandevilla take over, which I’m loving. Oh yeah, so the Mandevilla wasn’t connecting to the brick like we’d hoped. And after some trial and error, we came up with the perfect solution. An invisible trellis! Because I’m picky and wanted what I
envisioned, lol.

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Click here for the tutorial on that invisible trellis.

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See all our little ice cap buds back there? Once we cut the Salvia back at the end of their season, the roses will really gain some momentum in their growth, and be bigger (hopefully) and more noticeable behind those monstars.

We also got the new borders in and secured, but I can’t seem to get the old Azalea’s to quit popping up EVERYWHERE. Literally, we dug and chopped those roots out. WHY WON’T THEY LEAVE?!

Struggles of a wannabe gardener.

Stay tuned for the continued updates of our long, drawn out, slow moving renovations to different areas of our house and life.

-Kat.