Ok, you guys have heard me talking about how I’ve been working on the back patio and the front flower beds for awhile now, and it’s all. finally. DONE. So today you finally get to see the big before and after reveal! Be warned, this is a photo-heavy post. Take a look:
The Back Patio
All of those flower pots in the before picture are the same exact ones as in the after picture, just sealed and spray painted. And with stuff, you know, actually planted in them instead of them just sitting there empty. Add a new bistro set (complete with ice bucket!), some plant stands, a new doormat, and (the most labor intensive step) re-painting the cement base, and we have a patio that looks completely different and 100x better. I’m pretty thrilled with how it turned out. Next step: refreshing that white paint on the siding. But that can wait til later this summer. Here are some detail shots:
And now on to the front yard:
The Front Flower Beds
Goodbye ugly black rubber borders, hello pretty stone! And lots of baby succulents and cacti – most of them are so teeny tiny right now but will grow into themselves eventually (and be visible over the new stone borders, haha). Ian needs to trim the bushes again, but overall, I love the new look. And all of our new plants. Our jasmine vines are the only non-succulent/cacti plant out there that we planted ourselves, but I’ve managed to keep them alive for two years, so I have hopes they’ll co-exist peacefully. And you know it wouldn’t be my garden without an appropriate garden statue:
The expression on this dragon reminds me so much of Sienna, it’s ridiculous. But here’s some more detail shots from the front:
This last one was the hardest to find, but I love it. It’s called a Black Rose (aeonium arboreum Schwarzkopf). I’ve never seen anything like it. And the crazy looking one in the top left of the above picture will eventually be all reddish colored, as will the one in bottom right. And all of the little agaves and spiky cacti bloom with different colored flowers, too. I was trying to get some color variety but still keep it all in the hard-to-kill family. We’ll see how all of the colors play out once they’ve been in the ground longer. 🙂
What do you think? Good transformation? Any fellow aspiring green thumbs out there?
