Five on Friday

If I get this post finished with photos and published and linked ... well I guess you could call that just short of a miracle ;) It's been a mixed up, busy week, what with the end of school here, and schedules seem to all be up in the air!

And of course, since it's beautiful weather, I've been spending more hours outdoors than in. Good thing my sister came for a visit this week, which forced me to give the house a thorough cleaning. I'm linking up with Amy of Love Made My Home for Five on Friday. I won't bother showing you my tidy house, but I will show you some things outside. I hope I'm not boring you all to tears with my gardening posts ... actually today I've tossed in a few non-flower items :)

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One
I've seen this fun project all over Pinterest (and after a bit of searching, I think this is the original link which has a full tutorial). It's a simple project of a Heart of Stone ... basically stones held in a heart-shaped wire frame. And since I have "a few" rocks lying around, I couldn't wait to put one together! I made this with an old clothes hanger and some chicken wire. The chicken wire was a bit more of a struggle to work with than I thought it would be, but I finally wrangled it into this ...

The weight of the rocks made the chicken wire sag down, so I'll have to fill up the top of the heart again. If you do this yourself, be sure to leave yourself lots of extra chicken wire around the edges.

Two  

Remember the fairy houses from little tree stumps I was hoping to make up? Didn't get to that yet, but fairy houses were on my mind, so I did pick up this little birdhouse at the thrift store. I probably paid too much for it when I laid down two toonies, and when I got it home I wasn't that thrilled with it. It's going to get a paint job, but for now I've just set it in among the plant pots.

Three  

I picked up this tin planter at the thrift store as well. I planted Red Creeping Thyme in it ... oh, and a rock! I've been thinking of planting some of this thyme on a small hill beside our driveway, but I'm a little concerned that it will creep right into my neighbour's perfect weed-free-mown-every-other-day-watered-daily lawn! We're not on the best of terms, so part of me wants to do this just to see if the thyme would actually creep into his lawn (heh heh). The nice part of me thinks that's a bit mean. Because I can't make a decision if my life depended on it, I popped it into this planter for now to see if it will spread quickly. It's not done much in the week that I've had it ... I'm a bit impatient ;)

Four

You may remember me picking up a "Welcome" sign at the thrift store recently as well. I wanted to spray paint it since the original grey colour was a bit worn off. I did paint it, and if you look at the bottom three images, I'm going to let you guess as to which colour I used! Which colour do you think gives this little sign the best welcome?

Five

And now for a couple of "before and after" shots of things doing well in the gardens. I wouldn't show you my failures ... but trust me, there are some heartaches out there! This is the window box we planted on the garden shed. I water it regularly, and we've had some torrential downpours in the past few weeks, so it gets lots of water. When I was at Stricklands Perennial Farm, the owner there told us that petunias welcome a bit of shade, rather than full sun all day long. This box is in shade until about 1:00 p.m., and then it's full sun till around 8:00 p.m. It seems to be working. There is also some lobelia and a sweet potato vine in there (practically hidden by petunias).

Left: freshly planted
Right: after three weeks

The next shots are of my transplanted hostas under our pine tree. I first placed a ring of rocks around the base of the pine tree so that I could rake up the brown needles and have them all looking pretty there with the rocks. Then I remembered seeing a nice shady garden years ago that had a tall pine tree and huge hostas underneath it. I admired that look a lot! I decided two years ago to finally go ahead with making a hosta bed underneath the pine. I split my favourite hosta enough to be able to ring the tree with small cuttings. The first year I did this, the hosta looked fairly dismal, and I wasn't sure if it was going to survive. This spot is shaded until about 1:00 p.m. as well, and then it's full sun. This year they finally have filled in very well, and I'm happy with the look. I really want to get some of those dusty blue coloured hosta, and I will do that very soon ... maybe there will be sales at the garden centre soon!

Left: Ring of rocks with pine needles
Middle: First year of planting
Right: This year ... 2 summers later and looking good!

And that's my five! I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend! Ours has turned overcast and cool ... giving me a chance to be on the computer without feeling too guilty! 

Thanks for stopping by and

Happy Gardening!

Wendy