{Lily's Garden} A New Bed

As the boys worked inside (and then outside on our new deck project), I kept myself busy enjoying the nice 70-80 degree days (well, until the last day when mid-Missouri weather came back and brought some heat). Lily's Garden has been a work in progress over the last 4 years and hopefully this year will see some of the biggest changes. We have plans to remove all of the grass and replace with a nice pea gravel, but before that happened, I decided to make another flower bed. It looks a thousand times better already! 

If you follow me on Facebook (family and friends only) or on Instagram (@thebrickbungalow), you have seen some of the following photos. Pardon some of the mess too, but it's a work in progress.

Below is a photo of the back of the garden. The garden goes the length of our house on the north side. This bed was made and lined with the bricks (some had to be removed near the gate to get our dog house to the backyard but are back in place now). This is an area that gets the most shade except for right by the foundation, so our hydrangeas are in the back corner by the window. 

If you were to move the purple and green planter, you'd see that I never connected the brick lines together, leaving an empty space that always needed something in front of it. And all that grass right by the driveway was driving me crazy. Our weed eater broke and we aren't the best at edging, so it always creeped over the edge of the driveway. Nothing major really but enough that I was bothered by it. 

 Here's an Instagram shot (hence the square photo) of the soon to be made bed.

Here it is after I dug a line for the bricks. It's all in my head people so I had a vision and I went with it.

This is after I had Doug till it up. I removed the majority of the dead grass (as shown by the large piles in the driveway that were just the start). I had to wait for him to till it because he was busy inside on Lily's room and that's more important - this could wait until he needed a break. Side note - notice Doug's new toy in the garage?!

And here's a close up of the bricks. We were contacted a few years ago by a friend of my parents who is an architect. She was designing a house near my parents' that was being completely renovated. These bricks came from their chimney/fireplace and so we took them. They loaded them in my dad's trailer and we've been working with them since. Sad note - the house later burnt down right as they were finished with the remodel. It was a beautiful house too (no one was injured that I know of). So I guess we have the last remaining piece of the original house. It makes for a great edge for flower beds and it was FREE! 

And here it is (opposite angle as before photos, sorry). I transplanted my two different types of lavender that were outgrowing the raised bed near the front of the garden. One of them split in the process, giving me three clumps of it. The other should be divided but after looking at the roots, I wasn't sure if I'd kill it or successfully split it, so I left it alone. I can always go back and mess with it later when it's not 90 degrees. I also transplanted a mysterious plant (not sure if it's a perennial or annual or what it even is but it was being swallowed by other plants so I chose to move it) and one Asiatic Lily that was bought earlier this year and once my other plants finally appeared, it was in a bad place. The rest of the flowers - coneflowers, blanket flowers, etc - are all new. I took advantage of a 50% off sale at my favorite local nursery. 

Here's the same view as the before photos. The shade is made from our umbrella and I chose to keep it up after working to help protect the newly planted plants. I didn't want to burn them before I could soak them some more. I also moved two of our planters to finish up the end. The small planter in front is Lily's and she picked everything out. She's my little helper. The one behind it is the same blue and shape but larger. It holds some annuals. I like to plant my annuals in containers so it's an easy fix year to year. The little succulents/cacti in Lily's container will move indoors during the winter. 

Here's another shot of the new flowers - one daylily (a purple Stella, should be pretty!), coneflowers, and a blanket flowers. The bees are in love. Thanks to my dad, I was able to put fresh mulch around everything too. Notice the rocks? Doug found the five of them (two on the left, three stacked) in a bucket along with a giant shell under our concrete stairs that he removed for our deck project. I found them a new home! 

The stacked rocks in their new home. I have quite a few rocks throughout the garden and they've all been found or given to me. My dad is in construction and at a previous job site a guy had a ton of rocks that were going to be wasted if my parents hadn't taken them, so I now have them. 

A coneflower. The bees really love this one and I hope I can get some butterflies too! 

This blanket flower is a bee magnet! I'm all for helping the bees out (especially after hearing about thousands of them being killed throughout our country). We don't use any pesticides on our lawn or gardens, so they are happy here. No one has been stung either. We've taught Lily to leave them alone and they are happy to be on the flowers instead of us. 

This flower got a little dirty with the mulch but I love the bright yellow color against the dark mulch and bricks. The bees love them too.  

Partying over at... 

Read more at http://diyshowoff.com/2013/07/07/that-diy-party-23/#7eTMkAPO42hQFKPF.99