Is This Called Gardening or Nesting?

We are still awaiting Alden's arrival. My friends kind of snickered when I opted out of playgroup to go with Wally to pick out plants for our front bed. But I really wanted to get it done! Wally's mom had brought up a bunch of plants for us back at the end of May, but we needed bushes first to kind of define the bed. So, that's what we did instead of going to playgroup.

I also finally got rid of the dead pansies in our 2 stone/cement planters and replaced them with some fun petunias and sweet potato vine. It just really satisfies me to have a bit of color in the front (other than the color of our ugly shutters and door!).

It's actually funny how the petunias have really darkened in the sun. When I bought them, they were a pale pinky white, but now they are hot pink to almost red! I was trying to keep a similar color pallet to the bricks of the house/not clash with the shutters. Hm.

My fun planters and you can see some fuschia that we stuck in the ground with some lambs-ears in the beginnings of a flower bed to the right.

So far, we've only put in the Abelia bushes and black-eyed susans in the bed to the left of the door and some fuschia and lambs-ears to the right. The bushes will grow 3-4 ft tall and wide. The black-eyed susans will spread. So, we're happy with that start. We hope to add some short purple salvia maybe in front of the black-eyed susans, and I also really would love to have some pinkish coneflowers. We plan to extend the bed to the left of the door further out as well as make the bed on the right of the door as big as the space between the sidewalk and the house. We may even move the sidewalk so that it actually takes a more curved path to the house the way we naturally walk from the drive into the house. So lots to do!

The bed to the right of the door with the Abelias and black-eyed susans.

A close-up of one type of Abelia bush (for my mom who doesn't know what I'm talking about.)

A close-up of another type of Abelia. This one had glossier leaves and white flowers.

Our doorstep, yes grassy and dirty.

I don't hate the shutter color as much when we have some similar colors in the beds to tie it together. The fushia's leaves have a touch of the purple and so does the plant in front of the wreath on our front steps. The pink abelia is also kind of in that range too.

Our garden has been producing lots of tomatoes. We also have enjoyed some delicious yellow squash (I sauted our own squash, tomatoes, basil leaves and added some store-bought onions and thyme, so GOOD) and corn. There are cantaloupes and green peppers starting to grow. I'm very excited about the cantaloupes. I hope they'll be good!

Wally also finished cutting down a hollow tree behind our fence in the hopes that it will provide firewood for the winter. Our fireplace is another story...we need to remove the heavy cast-iron stove, get the fireplace itself thoroughly cleaned, and the chimney checked. That is probably a project for the fall.