[Inez] Things maybe only Elise cares about

You know we love you, gentle readers, but this was originally a blog for Elise and I to share with each other, so I'm going to use this post to show Elise some of the home/garden improvements we've done since she moved back to Minnesota. Elise, I think you'd be proud of us. I'm going to start in the front and work my way back.

Yesterday I went to Ginkgo Gardens with Colin so he could get some mulch and pepper plants, and I ended up getting stuff to line the front sidewalk.

I got Cheddar Pinks (the pink flowery things), Stonecrop (the low spready thing, which will apparently have flowers later in the summer, too), and these orange and red things that I absolutely love and whose name I don't know. These:

We also planted along the front walk with bulbs (which sort of did okay), and with wildflowers. Right now it just looks kind of weedy, but there are these little white things that have started blooming within the past couple days:

The flowers are probably .5-1 cm across, and low to the ground (6 in high or so). These are from the low wildflower mix you left.

Along the back of the front yard (against the front porch), we planted two little rose bushes from Home Depot, and the yellow sunflowers you left. I also planted two canna lily bulbs I got from Fragers, and in front of all that we planted some of your tall wildflower mix.

This is the left side of the porch. We've got a potted rosemary, a bitty rose bush, some thriving sunflowers, and if you look closely on the lower right you'll see my bitty canna lily (hiding between the sunflowers), doing quite well in spite of its large neighbors. I thinned the sunflowers out around the lilies so that they will still get light.

The rose bush on the right (by the stairs) is doing really well, and already has buds! (We were worried they wouldn't bloom at all this year.)

Look, I worked something beautiful and yellow into this post!

For inside we got a new hanging plant for the other living room doorway, and a little begonia which lives next to the TV, where it has a chance of getting some light. It goes really nicely with the curtains (that sounds dumb, but it really does).

Last Saturday was the big Brookland yard sale day, and I got this pretty photograph.

I hung it on the little bit of wall above my vintage blue chair (looking from the living room to the dining room).

In the back, the boys planted 8 (!) tomato plants, and four little strawberry plants in a big pot. Also some lettuce. The tomato plants are doing really well and getting quite big! I guess we should get some cages...

The lettuce looks like an alien life form right now, to me.

And the strawberries are doing so well that I think we might need to build them a trough so they have room to spread out.