My Poor Plants

What happens when you have a month of 100+ degree temps, hardly any rain, and then forget to water your plants for a day or two:

BEFORE

AFTER

Whoops!! Guess I’ve been spending too much time in the pool!  Luckily the rest of my garden doesn’t look quite this bad!

Product Review: Plastic Brick Edging from CSN Stores

I have been putting off this product review from CSN Stores for quite some time now! It took me a while to find the perfect product to review.  We have lived in our house for five years and the previous homeowner did a great job putting in a beautiful flower bed across the front of the house, but I was not a big fan of the green plastic edging she used.  I have been on the hunt for something to replace it for the past couple of years.  I came across the Plastic Brick Edging with Solar Lights while browsing CSN and decided to give it a shot.  Here are a few photos of the garden before:

And some after shots with the new edging and new mulch:

I love the look at night, even though it is hard to tell from these photos.  Each 40’ set comes with six solar bricks and I used two sets.

I have to admit, I was pleasantly surprised with the overall finished look.  I was worried that you would be able to tell that the bricks are plastic and that they would look “cheap” but I really don’t feel that way now.  They went together easily and the only tools needed were a spade (to level out the ground) and a mallet (to tamp them down into the ground).  The lights have worked without fail every night.

There are so many options for edging/borders out there, and with the length of flower bed I had to cover everything else I looked at was just going to be too expensive.  At $60 per set, the price was much more reasonable. One more look…..

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I highly recommend CSN Stores, they have everything from outdoor furniture to shoes and clothing!  The shipping was relatively quick and the customer service was excellent.  Check them out next time you are surfing the web!

*Disclaimer: I was provided a coupon code to use towards the purchase of this item.  All opinions are purely my own and were not influenced by anyone.  I was not compensated in any other way for this post.

A Blooming Success!

The paperwhites that I planted a few weeks ago did well in their little container and sprouted a bunch of blooms!

Their fragrant white blossoms have been filling up the house with a sweet smell.

And they were the perfect addition to the lovely lilies hubby brought me last week:

They didn’t last as long when cut & added to the vase, but I replaced them with some daffodils from the garden today:

And look what else is sprouting blooms….my lazy little Christmas Cactus has decided to finally produce some color.  Seems it blooms later & later every year!

What’s appearing in your garden??  Spring is almost here!

Sunny Days

Finally, some sunshine around these parts!  While we haven’t had to bear the harsh winter storms of the northeast, it has been particularly gloomy and cold here lately. I took advantage of the sunshine to plant some paperwhites.

I’ve never grown any indoor bulbs before, so this will be an experiment!

I’m not even sure if it’s the right time to plant them, am I a little late?

Hopefully not, and some green will start sprouting up soon!

I’m keeping my green thumbs crossed!

Spirit Friday

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, real life & work got in the way of my crafting and blogging! But I wasn’t about to miss Spirit Friday, where I show off a little purple & gold or black & gold spirit! 

A friend of mine recently brought me this cute piece of garden art from a craft show in her hometown:

How adorable is this purple and gold flower?  It’s made from tin cans, can you tell??

Looks like these would be easy to DIY if you had a strong pair of tin snips.  My friend said they had them in all colors.

Since all my real flowers have croaked from the extremely dry, hot summer we’ve had, this is the perfect addition to my wilting garden.  I’ve just got to add a little “LSU” down the stem for even more spirit!

Sharing with the following parties:

 

Geaux Tigers, Beat West Virginia!!

Fading Away

Have I mentioned how much I love my hydrangea bushes out back?  Come May, I can’t wait for the bright pink and purple blooms to burst open.  The best part is we can enjoy the blooms practically all summer long as they fade from bright pink to green to brown.  These lovely shades were just begging to come inside for an arrangement.

There aren’t many pink blooms left.  I love how they look combined with the ones that have already started to fade into green.

As I was cutting them, a couple stems got broken up close to the head and were too short to put in a regular vase.  So I stuck them in this little teacup!

Pretty darling if I do say so myself!

Simply the perfect flower!