{The House} Front and Side Yard Clean Up

Who doesn't love a good before and after? This one is mostly a time and weather issue but I did have to go in and clean up a bunch of the overgrowth I allow to stay for the winter months. Why do I do it? Because it provides food (flower seeds), shelter, and nutrition for the ground. Once I see bugs moving around, I'll clean it up and send some off to the local landfill (yard waste only). Some goes into my own compost. 

Among the pretty growth of my perennial flowers, you'll notice the switch of pots. I took all my blue pots and grouped them on my back patio. These two matching pots look nice here with the arbor and then I added some new white and black pots for my front porch. I'll do a separate post for it as it still needs some work. 

Unfortunately after I took this photo, we had a hard freeze so I'm not sure how my sweet potato vines are doing. I may replace them this weekend if they don't perk back up tody and toorrow with the warmer weather. I cut off the brown leaves and they aren't completely dead yet. The rest is looking great though! I plan on updating this photo often as the plants continue to grow and bloom. I need to take out a lot of my purple coneflower and replace my butterfly bush I lost a few years ago, but that'll maybe happen this summer. 

Check on my Instagram account - thebrickbungalow - for more photos as I work on the yard and show off what's in bloom. 

 

{Side Yard} Ivy Control

While working on our bathroom this summer, Doug and I also got one outside project check off our to do list. We seem to do smaller projects at the same time as big projects. Anyone else do this? I think we had done most of our bathroom and were at the waiting stage (paint drying or something similar) and so we completed one small project. I can't wait to see how it looks this year once some more growth is added.

But… we tackled our side porch's ivy issue. I love the English Ivy and have cut it back a few times to control the growth. It's an amazing plant and we figured we could use it's growing power to block out our neighbors. I'm hoping it'll block out some of their smoke but that's more wishful thinking. I can dream, right?? 

So not only do we have a giant patch of the ivy, there's also another, more boring, type of ivy mixed in with a plant that seems to want to take over the world. I think it's Rose of Sharon and it'll be gone this summer. It's a pretty plant but is in my way. And grows like crazy. This is what we had after I chopped the Rose of Sharon a lot. The ivy is growing up and around the white edge to our porch. 

And so with a few boards, white paint, and some clothes line, we created a zig zag like pattern for the ivy to grow up. It filled it a lot more since this photo but I apparently never took another photo. You can see the saw horse and other bathroom related items that we used this summer. 

 And while cleaning out a lot of the ivy, this big (seriously like 5") praying mantis wanted to defend his territory.  

And yes, we need to paint all the white window sills and trim around our house…

Do you have ivy? How do you control it if you do?  

{Deck} Container Gardens

I love the outdoors and now that we have our new deck, going outside couldn't be any easier. OK, so it wasn't hard to begin with seeing as we have a great covered porch on the front of our house and a large patio on the back.. but you get what I mean. We built the deck last summer and this summer, I wanted to add some plants. I figured that if I were to spend any amount of time outside, I'd need something to scare away the mosquitos because my dream of them all dying hasn't happened. Yet. 

So, in comes Pinterest to the rescue to tell me what type of plants help keep mosquitos away. Basically, the majority of herbs with strong smells... Cilantro, basil, mint, rosemary, and more. I planted them in containers made to sit on the deck railings. We had two already from our strawberries (that produced about 2 berries) and so I added four more. I also added marigolds and some petunias for color. 

Below left is a pineapple sage that smells like pineapples!

In the last two photos you can see our "kids area"... aka our swing set, slide, and giant trampoline (that we got for free!). The second to last photo shows our sad little shed that desperately needs a makeover. It'll get one, this fall hopefully, in time for its new purpose in life next spring... half chicken coop, half storage. Now, Doug will just have to find the snake and kill it because he said he saw one and I don't do snakes in my yard. And speaking of the kids' area too, we have more plans for that may start this fall in preparation for Nate's first birthday! 

Sharing at: Work It Wednesday

{Garden} Flowers

A couple of years ago my aunt gave us some peach irises. They are in full bloom now and are almost to the point of needing dividing. That's ok though, there's a plan of an all iris bed along the south side of our house (it's a small patch of grass between our house and our neighbor's driveway). Our purple irises are thriving there. 

Anyway, here are the peach ones after the rain on Sunday. 

And this little purple plant that isn't so little anymore... it was a $1 clearance by from Lowe's last year. I picked it because I love purple, it was a perennial, and because the plant was still in shape. It's obviously doing well! 

This one, below, is a new addition to our flower bed out front of our house. I had originally thought of doing all white flowers but found myself attracted to pinks and purples too. So, this one, and a few others, came home with me from Lowe's. I have this one in white too and they add some much needed height to the front bed. I'm hoping the butterflies will enjoy it too! I know the bees are super happy about all my flowers.