Summer Gardening, Part 1

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

This summer has been successful for our gardens. Our efforts started out a little rocky, especially for the vegetable garden, but now we are enjoying the fruits of our labor.

In our front flower beds, the day lilies, hibiscus, gladiolus, petunias and black-eyed susans are looking beautiful this year. Early in the summer, we experienced moderate temperatures and rain which helped keep our flowers happy. They are in better shape than they were during last year’s heat wave.

Here is a peek at our blooming flowers:

Up next: an update on our vegetable garden.

Geraniums, Gerberas, Petunias and a Calla Lily, Oh My!

Posted on May 28, 2013 by Frame by Frame Style

We hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend. BJ and I enjoyed a few days with my parents and even did a little mowing and gardening on Monday.

To catch you up on our outdoor projects, a few Sundays ago we had an incredibly productive day. We went to Lowes in the morning to pick up a few gardening supplies and flowers, and then we went home and started planting our vegetable garden and potting plants.

The same Sunday that I planted our vegetable garden (an update on that soon), I also planted the flower pots on our front porch.

BJ and I chose brightly colored gerberas daisies for our flower pots. Gerberas daisies are one of my favorite flowers! BJ and I love the bright colors, which is why we also chose them as our wedding flowers.

Earlier this Spring, my mom brought us two old ceramic pots that she stained in ceramic class when I was a little girl. We’ve had these pots in our family for a long time and my grandmother also has a set.

When my mom offered the ceramic pots to us, I immediately thought to use them to dress up our back patio, however, after I potted them, I liked them better for our front porch. I chose geraniums for the pots in red in white.

The Monday night following our productive Sunday, I planted petunias in the flowers beds out front.

We had such great luck with our petunias last year that I decided to plant even more this year. Yesterday, I planted pink petunias to go along with the purple and fuchsia candy-striped petunias I planted two weeks ago.

While I was planting yesterday, I also added this beautiful calla lily to our garden.

I think our front two gardens might be complete for a few months. 🙂 Now we just have to maintain them throughout the summer.

Here’s a view of our two front gardens. We’re building some pretty nice curb appeal!

Friday Night Lights

Posted on June 15, 2012 by Frame by Frame Style

The gazebo is finished and the lights are up. It’s official, we now have a patio where we can relax and enjoy the summer days and nights.

I didn’t have my tripod out, but here is a (slightly blurry) nighttime photo of the finished patio. I will grab a better picture tomorrow with my tripod.

I love the lights.

Tomorrow I will have another post on how we installed the gazebo. Because the gazebo wasn’t tall enough to clear the sliding glass door, we decided to raise it up. But more on that tomorrow. 🙂

Have a great night!

Backyard Living

Posted on June 11, 2012 by Frame by Frame Style

Ever since we added the backyard bistro set to our patio, BJ and I have been talking a lot more about our future plans for the backyard. For two years, we barely used the space. Other than grilling, we didn’t go out there for anything else. Now that we have the table and chairs, we hope to use the space more often.

After a few nights of eating outside last week, we discovered that it’s very warm on our patio. We have some nice shade from the neighboring trees, but because our house faces east, the sun sets right on our backyard, heating up the patio.

To keep from avoiding the backyard and the heat over the next few months, we decided to buy a gazebo to provide some additional shade… Oh and not to mention that the whole gazebo idea started when we found all these awesome led lights on sale and we needed somewhere to hang them in our backyard.

We started building the gazebo tonight, but after looking at the weather and seeing that rain and wind are on their way here, we only put up the frame. We didn’t have a chance to anchor the gazebo down and we do not want the fabric top to act as parachute and carry everything away in the meantime.

Tomorrow night, we are planning to anchor the whole thing down and add the fabric top. We are also looking at how we can raise the height of the gazebo because the frame at its current height, goes right across the top of our door.

More updates to come! Stay tuned!