Packrat's yard pics 2013

[lknvrb4]

Amazing transformation, you really have some talent!

 

[packrat]

Thanks everyone! Once the beds are actually done, it's not that much work keeping them maintained...it's the planning/preparing/planting that is the time consumer. Then once the plants get a little bigger, they keep some of the weeds down, so that helps too. And actually, JD's the one that does all the hard work--I'm the one that says "Oh hey, I was thinking..." I did have to dig and plant a few things last week b/c he was working on the deck planters and ohhh was I ticked off hahahaha!

My parents have been helpful in fine tuning our ideas. We had a fish fry last night and dad was surveying the yard w/a big grin on his face, my aunt was saying "Now, I remember you guys saying you were NEVER going to do what your dad did.." I'm like...yeeeaaaah but it's so pretty, we can't help it!

There is a "yard of the month" thing in town, but we've never won it. We used to go find the house and check it out ourselves but the last time was a place that had a white picket fence, a couple pots of wave petunias and a hill/mound of about 20 roses. It's a bit of a "who ya know" deal in our small town. We do however, enjoy getting ice cream and driving around town to check out other people's landscaping. Some of them probably think we're casing the joint, driving by really slow, pointing..we should think about leaving notes in their mailboxes about how we enjoy looking at their yards. Someone left a note in my parents mailbox years ago and she still has it on the fridge.

I should find some pics of my parents place. We used to give tours--impromptu ones, people just driving by to see neighbors (they live on a gravel road off a blacktop, off of a main hwy), or people who heard of their place thru word of mouth in town. There used to be a restaurant in town where they had coffee twice a day, every day, and they used to bring in floral arrangements and put on the register counter. The restaurant was next to the main hotel in town, so a lot of travelers would see the flowers, comment on them, and one of the "coffee regulars" would chime in and encourage them to detour the 10 miles out of town to see the gardens. It wasn't unusual to come outside to do my work and be like oh hello, there are people wandering around the yard.

We have talked several times about doing landscaping on the side, especially we've thought about it this summer b/c now I'm off all summer, and he has a lot of time off, so it would be nice to have extra money coming in to offset what I'm not bringing in. There are two other businesses in town that do landscaping/yard work, but I wonder if they mostly do yard work b/c there really aren't a lot of places that have cool yards.

 

[Smith1942]

I love your house and garden! I also love the way it comes complete with a gorgeous, GORGEOUS King Charles spaniel!!

 

[lulu]

Wow! What a transformation. It's beautiful!

 

[packrat]

Thank you Smith and Lulu!

 

[Rosebloom]

Absolutely amazing! I'm so impressed!

 

[SB621]

Beautiful Packrat!!! Your yard gives me hope. I have a black thumb but I would love to do something like this to our side yard. Roses are my favorite but I'm really worried about killing them

 

[packrat]

Thank you Rosebloom and SB!

SB, what zone are you in? You could look into Knock Out roses. That's what most of ours are, save for the two in the far end corner triangle daylily beds up front which are Champlain roses. Knock outs are easy peasy lemon squeezy to grow. And hostas, holy moly, put em in the ground, give em some water and then that's about it. That's why most of our stuff is hostas. Plus, they come in some of the most amazing combos of green/white/cream/yellow. And they have cool names---I'm dying to do a Trekkie bed--there's an Enterprise, Captain Kirk, and Vulcan. Ha! Oh, and daylilies are easy to grow too.

Hostas also will multiply-we constantly have to look under the bigger ones and dig out the little babies that grow. And when they get big enough, you can dig them up and split them into more pieces-they handle it remarkably well. They're easily moved too, even if you don't split them. They're about the most hardy plant ever I think.

 

[iLander]

I love your yard, Packrat! It's just gorgeous!

I'm jealous of all the hostas you can grow, I can't grow them down here. Can you do bulbs and tulips too?

Once your neighbors saw would you could do, did they improve their yards, too?

It looks like one of those "Curb Appeal" show makeovers. Nice work!

 

[packrat]

Thanks ilander! Aww that's too bad you can't do hostas where you are-I thought they were pretty all encompassing zone wise but must not be! Yeah, the neighbor's on the west side tried a couple times to do part of their front yard and it didn't work well..just a little patch but didn't work out..it's just him alone now and he's trying...I want to just ring the door bell and be like hey, can we just put some of these daylilies up here b/c those hostas aren't going to grow in full sun like that. Kitty corner across the street they started going crazy one year doing stuff, and she came across and pretended to give us hell for making everyone else look bad.

 

[distracts]

It's AMAZING how much a coat of paint does to the outside of the house. After I moved in with my husband, I painted much of the interior, which really improved everything, and then we hired painters for the exterior and reroofed due to hail damage, and the house looked, I swear, a million times better just from the color changes.

I LOVE your beautiful garden yard. I would love my yard to look like that but in reality I just have no interest in gardening.

 

[dragonfly411]

WOW Packrat!! You guys have done an awesome job!

 

[Laila619]

Amazing transformation! It looks incredible!!

What was the big wooden pole in the front yard in the 'before' picture?

 

[packrat]

Thanks guys!

Laila, it's a telephone pole that is in the neighbors yard. They've got a trumpet vine on it now and we've gotten 7 little sprouts from it that have popped up in our yard this summer. We planted them behind and on the side of the water tank in the back yard so they'll grow up the fence there.

 

[DiamondBrokersofFlorida]

Wow you have been working really hard. Beautiful, beautiful,beautiful.

 

[packrat]

Thank you!