Blooming Where We Are Planted

Our backyard before:

OK, when we first moved here our backyard was depressing...to say the least!  Mostly dead grass surrounded by dusty sandy dirt/clay.  Ugh. 

(The two rose bushes in the 1/2 barrels we brought with us)

 (...Yep those two blondies are my girls and the then-baby Sam in '07 the day we were loading up the moving van)
Our old yard in C/C was so green and plush (after much work on it) it was a bummer to have the 'barren wasteland' at our new place!  ;)  Heck, when we found out where we were moving we didn't think we would get a yard at all, we sold our mower, BBQ, and all that stuff...only to buy replacements once we got here! *sigh* C'est la vie!  Not that the kids didn't have LOTS of fun...digging holes in the dirt and making 'creations' with water and the clay/dirt...ugh (see first photo)  Oh, they got soooo muddy and gross every time they went out to play!

I really don't blame anyone for not putting much money and time into the backyard of a rental...most renters destroy WAY more than they improve a property!  Luckily we have a WONDERFUL landlady, she is truly a pleasure to rent from!  She has allowed us freedom to fix it all up as we see fit, and even helped out with the cost...I LOVE YOU ELSA! :D  It has taken us the past two summers to get the hang of gardening in the desert, and we are really happy with the results!

The sprinkler system was broken and that finished off the poor grass last spring, so with our Landladys approval, Josh had some very nice landscapers to come and tear out the old grass, level the yard, fix the sprinkler set-up, install a drip-system (he is explaining the drip system to Josh in the pic), spread pretty cover-rocks around the edges, and lay down new sod! :D  This was May 09.

So THIS year we decided to plant some of our OWN flowers and veggies!  We used these little peat-pellet greenhouses, and have some GREAT success!

Of course we have no actual in-the-ground-garden space, so Josh got a bunch of scrap lumber and built us some above-ground garden boxes! 

As usual Amanda helped a ton.  :D 

Just look at her wielding that drill all alone!

YOU GO GIRL! ;)

Of course Izzy just HAD to help too!

Now for the BIG reveal...[drumroll please...]

OK, we are going to go Left to Right around the yard! 

Our BBQ...which has seen MUCH use since all this work has been getting done!

Don't adjust the color on your monitor, that is GREEEEEEEEN!!! ;)

Behind the BBQ Josh made this great multi-level arrangement! So pretty right?  The big climbing vine is Jasmine, in the two blue pots we have a bunch of flowers we are growing from seed, and the little tree in the terra cotta pot is a dwarf lemon tree!!!

Our first little lemon!!!  Isn't she cute? The blossoms on this tree smell INTOXICATING!!! I LOVE IT!

I can only imagine what it is like to live near a huge citrus grove...AWESOME!

Yup, we got a topsy Turvy Tomato Grower thingie!  We ran out of room in our planter boxes (which you have yet to see) so we thought we would try it out...so far so good!  Three of the six tomato plants in it have started to bloom!

Here is Sam helping us add the soil to the planter, he had SO much fun doing it!  He about had to crawl inside the bag to fill up his little bucket then he would climb up the stepladder to dump it in...so cute!

Here we have a Bouganvilla in the corner on the white trellis, Rosebush in the big pot, another Bouganvilla on the short trellis, daisies in front, and more little flowers in the little pot.

We really thought that our Bouganvilla had 'bought the farm' after the winter.  (OK, so 1 did, but 2 out of 3 isn't bad...right???)  We didn't really 'winterize' them at all last year, and they looked TERRIBLE this spring!  I pruned until my pruner was sore, and just LOOK at how beautiful they are already!

This is the back wall with most of the new and/or improved plantings...pretty ugly backdrop, huh?  Not much to be done with a cinderblock wall right? Well...lucky for me my hubby is a GENIUS!

We got this Reed Fence stuff, and it made a HUGE difference! :D  We also found these little planter boxes to hang on the wall, and the MOST gorgeous colored flowers to go inside them:

I mean have you ever SEEN Petunias these colors?

or these Daisy-type flowers with the SAME colors?

UH-MAZE-ING!!!! :D

Our Fancy schmancy new petunias along with some pretty ground cover flowers (you can't see them, they are from seed and still tiny!) and some Morning Glory that will hopefully vine out and all down the planter...should be really beautiful! :)

Yellow long-stemmed rosebush, with the hummingbird feeder nestled in there, a fern that we brought back from the brink of death, and I think a geranium plant that was TOTALLY out of control...until I took my snippers to it and Josh replanted it..now it is starting to bloom again! :D

This is one of those yellow long-stemmed roses...Beeeeautiful!

If this isn't the prettiest hummingbird feeder EVER I don't know what is!

Most of the hummingbird feeders seem to be made of hideous red plastic...SO UGLY! 

But we saw this one and LOVED it! ;)  I hope the birdies do too! :D

And in this corner we have a very lively climbing white tea-rose bush that only has about 3 dozen buds (at least) on it right now.  In the bottom of that barrel are two Scotch Broom plants, I know that to many farmers they are weeds...but get ONE whiff of the fragrance coming off of those yellow flowers- you will think you have died and gone to heaven! :D

(Note: The half barrels were actually once a WHOLE whiskey barrel we bought at a antique store in Utah and Josh sawed that sucker in half for our roses, that (RIP) didn't make it through the transition to July/Aug desert heat when we moved )

Our Garden!

Far left: crook-neck squash, jalepenos in the small box in back (that is pronounced Jal-uh-peen-yoh ;), then twelve...yes, I said 12 Zucchini plants in the next box...we are totally going to be those people who show up to church with a trunk full of produce to pawn off on our friends!  Where was I?  Oh yeah, we have a whole HUGE box of just peas...yup, ones side is sugar-snap peas and the other dwarf regular pea plants.  They are the first thing we planted and are totally FREAKING out! :D  In the back where you almost can't see are Cucumbers, then in the next large box on the far right are the green beans and some Roma tomatos in front!

[whew!!]

Josh found this great inexpensive net trellis for the plants to climb...and climb they DO!

Lastly we got this neato hanging basket holder to put some more flowers in! It was suprisingly inexpensive and looks really cool with all the colorful flowers!  We did get some already blooming plants, and then planted some of our 'from seed' flowers in as well....we shall see how they do!

Oh, and we did purchase some cheap Adirondack style stacking chairs, they are actually really comfy and we can stack them out of the way when we aren't using them!  I would LOVE to have a real patio table and chairs set...but they are far more $$$ than we can spend, and WHERE exactly would I put it???

This would be the LONE petunia bloom left in the hanging baskets...for some reason Izzy thinks that ripping the heads off of the petunias in the two lower baskets is her calling in life.

*sigh*

OK, so there you have it, that is our new and improved backyard, pretty cool huh?  It is too cramped to get far enough away to get it all in one picture, so please forgive the sheer quantity of pix on this post! :D 
We had so much fun fixing it all up...yet perhaps you say "WHY?" when we could very well be moving next summer (depending on where Josh gets a residency) Why would we put so much time, effort and $$$ into the yard of our rental condo? 
This is why:

BBQ dinner outside with the fam.

The kids just hanging out in the yard, having fun!

I LOVE having so much green in our yard,
and putting all the time and labor into it
makes it that more special!
Besides, who will you call
when you need Zucchini...
...me.
:D