Garden Before and After

Today's post has been a challenge learning how to get the photos from my phone, to my laptop, to the blog.  But, it finally happened, and so here are a few pics of "before" and "after" in my little piece of heaven yard.  It's been such a joy to work on this transformation.  We just love this tiny piece of real estate, and hopefully, as the years go by, the garden will continue to evolve.  I once read something about how to make a house your own after you move in.  The writer said he (or she, I don't remember) had repainted their newly purchased house in colors they liked and moved in their belongings, but it wasn't until they worked in their yard and really got their hands dirty, that they felt like the house was really theirs.  Somehow, getting in the yard and planting something living and watching it take shape and grow makes you feel bonded to the house.  It's another reflection of you!

Here is the shady side of the backyard before any planting was done.  The oak tree is huge, and not wanting to incur the cost to remove it, we worked with it. 

 Eventually we added 125 Ardesia plants as ground cover around the roots of the tree.  Shortly after the Ardesia was planted, the purple Wandering Jew appeared.  We liked it, it was sort of wild - so it stayed!

Then we added the hanging plants and the stag horns and, finally, the crepe myrtle.  Every Southern garden should have a crepe myrtle!

Here's the side garden on the shady side as it looks now.  Notice our Pallet garden leaning against the fence! My better half cut down a standard pallet found in the Lowe's parking lot to this smaller size, and we raided the reduced-price plant cart for the annuals to fill it.  There's some vinca and other varieties of Wandering Jew - just whatever was seriously marked down - nothing was more than 50 cents!  My lovely neighbor Denny, introduced me to the red honeysuckle which is climbing on the trellis, and there is just a variety of drought tolerant plants spaced along the fence.  Finally, my dad contributed the stag horns which were in his yard, and I separated and re-mounted them.

This area was messy and muddy and got very little direct sunlight, so grass was never going to happen. We considered brick (too expensive to install), concrete (too cold-looking), and decided on this stone look-alike product from Lowe's.

It came out pretty well I think! We added holly ferns, purple fountain grass and a planter with impatiens and ivy - oh, and a summer wreath, to the storage shed.

Here's the view from the sunny side of the yard.  On this side there's firespike, plumbago, and several other sun-loving plants, and we ordered the shutters for the door and window of the storage shed.  We couldn't move it, so we made it a feature!

Here's the sunny side with viburnum and lorapetalum.  We ordered the adirondack chairs from a local vendor at the City Park Spring Garden show, and purchased the 2 bromeliads the same day.  My better half and I made the weed bottle window using beer bottles attached with picture hanging wire.

Last, but not least, here are the views of the left and right sides of the patio with various containers of swedish ivy, spider plants, ground cover, begonias, peace plants, fox tail fern and a few herbs.  The wall art is my take on a similar one seen in a breakfast place in Destin this year.  We made it from a piece of closet shelving and wood shims cut and painted to look like a row of houses.  Outdoor pillows are from K-Mart's end-of-season sale. The mosaic table was salvaged from the trash pickup pile down the street!