al fresco time

I love my yard! :)

We love our yard and our patio. We'd better. Every blade of grass, every plant, every tree, every flower, is there because we put it there. Every single brick of our patio was touched by my hands, in fact, I carried everyone of those suckers from the big pile dumped by the rock place to its home in our patio. My husband is the landscape designer, I just add my professional opinion where needed, which pretty much means everywhere.

When we built our house we had trouble selling our other home, we had two mortgages for about 6 months, I still don't know how we did that, sheer will I guess. During that time, my poor husband wanted to go to the nurseries and Home Depot every day, he loves working in the yard. I just wanted to make sure we paid our bills and had food, you know the basics. So for about three years or so, all, and I mean, all of our extra money (ha, like anyone has "extra") went to our landscaping.

We live on a golf course and everyone (almost everyone) has phenomenal landscaping, this was definitely a case of "keeping up with the Joneses" for a while. We felt the pressure to not look like the hillbillies on the street with half dead plants and empty flower beds.

Now after living here for six years, I finally feel like we can enjoy it. No more deciding how to spread our budget to finish off an area that desperately needs some green. We spend our time pruning, weeding, smelling (you would love to smell my magnolia right now- heaven! yes it is mine, hubby bought it for me because I really want to move south and live in warm weather), and gazing at our handiwork/hard work!

These red trees are Japanese maples, we bought one a year for Paul until we had four, for his Father's Day gift. The daylillies I snagged once in a McDonald's drive thru, I begged the landscaping guys who were tearing everything out to let me have them. They gladly loaded them in my truck (yes, I had to drive a truck for a while- so annoying for a shorty like me).
Look at this lushness! Uh, fugettaboutit, it's perfection, to me anyway.
Brick by brick, I carried all of them as Paul and I built this patio. So much heavy lifting, digging, measuring, but so worth it. Those wet streaks are from me watering my pots (see yesterday's post, wink wink!).
My hubby's bonsai trees, yes, he is a weird bird guy and a weird bonsai guy. I guess I have to overlook those things since he lets me buy tons of Longaberger baskets and scrapbooking stuff. We all have our "things" right?!

The things we planted and definitely this patio will be some of the things we miss most if/when we ever move. Until then, we are going to keep enjoying our lovely oasis. Tis the season to dine al fresco at my house! (Thanks to Kristin's donation of the picnic table for the kids, we are eating outside every day!)