succulence.

One of these days soon, I am going to post an update about our outdoor patio. We moved in to our apartment over a year ago, and we have only just gotten around to doing something with the patio in the last couple of months. Ben finally bought himself a firepit which he has been talking about for years and we are slowly making it comfortable enough to enjoy once the rain finally stops.

We took one small step this afternoon and that involved succulents for the patio! I bought two planters a couple months ago from CB2- this one and this one - and they have been sitting empty just waiting for some action. So, today we went over to Bernal to the Succulence Life and Garden store - a fantastic little shop that we would highly recommend. The staff baby-stepped us through all things succulents and then helped us plant the planters with drainage, soil, succulents we picked out and some pebbles/rocks on the top. Here are some photos and we can't wait for it to stop raining so we can put these two gorgeous lookers out on the patio. More to come soon....

mid-summer.

It has been two months since we did all that planting in the front yard (here is the post about it from May) and here is the mid-summer update - you won't believe the difference in just two months.

Here is the little garden area in the front yard by the tree...

MAY

JULY

Here are the azalea bushes right after we planted them, along with the iris bulbs...

MAY

JULY

 And here is the side of the house along our brick wall...

Oh yeah, and we added a DC flag to the front of the house and the flower boxes are in full bloom. All in, we have a lot of growth and color going on

sprinkles.

It's Friday!!!! We are headed up to NYC tonight for the weekend - one of my best friends from college is getting married. What are you all doing?!

And in a garden/yard update (since I know you all have been waiting for it), Ben went all out yesterday and installed a sprinkler-drip system. We leave for a trip next week and were fretting about the watering situation, but he researched and installed this whole system. He bought the Orbit Digital 2-0utlet HT Timer that he attached to the hose faucet and set a timer for it to go on every morning. And then he ran this Micro Sprinkler Landscape and Shrub Kit throughout the yard--all for about $100.  It is not obtrusive at all and the system allows you to buy more stakes/sprinkler heads if you need them. We are loving it so far. Proud Ben jumped up out of bed this morning to look out at the window to make sure the timer worked and the flowers were being fed!

green thumb.

Ben and I have taken a swan-dive into the big world of gardening and we are loving it. Last night, after work, we went outside for 15 minutes to look at all our flower-children and inspect which ones were showing bulbs and which ones are struggling. And yesterday, Ben invested a solid 45 minutes into researching drip irrigation watering kits and we debated whether we are watering and feeding the azaleas enough. It is addictive and feels good. And on that note, Mols had passed along this Washington Post article last week, The Healing Powers of the Earth. It is all about why gardening is so good for you...beyond just being outside and getting your hands dirty - this claims the science behind it....

coming up roses.

This past weekend was a perfectly gorgeous two days of spring in DC. So, on Sunday, Ben and I decided to make the most of it with a full day of yard and garden work. Slowly but surely, we have been gardening and planting up a storm the last couple of weeks and our yard is finally coming together. A couple weeks ago, Ben's mom thinned her garden and sent down Iris bulbs for us to garden along our border wall and just inside the gate - we are really excited to see them bloom in the next month.

Here are some of the iris bulbs starting to show in front of the house...

And last week, we added annuals along the wall and in the yard to add a pop of color...

On Sunday, we decided to buy two Azalea Encore bushes to put in front of the porch. We anticipate they are going to grow wide and long and fill in nicely. With that said, we had to dig up the iris bulbs and move them out from the porch to fit the azaleas and then replant the iris bulbs again....

But here is the finished front with the newly planted azaleas and the replanted iris bulbs!

And finally, we decided to fix and build up the tree boxes that are on the south sidewalk of our house. They have been severly neglected and we wanted to start to beautify that part of the street - it was a long day - but it is all coming together slowly! Here is the before...

We made an early morning trip to Home Depot after measuring everything out and we beat the crowd to the lumber section and had them cut everything up...and Ben did the bulk of drilling and staking and drilling and staking...

 And here are the newly bordered tree boxes...

Next steps include figuring out what we can plant in the tree boxes that 1) cheap 2) we don't need to water/maintain and 3) dog friendly. If you have any suggestions - we are all ears...and in the meantime - you can find us watering a lot!