How Does Your Garden Grow?

If it grows like ours, it either dies in the freeze or grows wild weeds all over the entire surface area of the lawn.  Your visual image should be dead grass with about twenty species of weeds covering said patchy dead lawn.     

Recall my earlier post wherein I featured some embarrassing shots from our dead lantana and dead elephant ears. 

Saved as "dead" in My Pictures.

Saved as "Gross" in My Pictures.

Although I really try to be honest on the blog and always fully disclose everything, I was actually too embarrassed to snap photos of the entire yard because it looked so overgrown with weeds and dead flora(simultaneously).  Here is the best I could do (and this was the least of the ugly).

Note the dead pots, fried mulch and overgrown/dead rose bushes. 

Reprise: The neighbors hate us. 

My parents descended Ty Pennington/Extreme Makeover Home Edition style yesterday to assist us in cutting, raking, pruning, watering, mulching, pulling out and replacing.  I really cannot stop staring at the cleaned up and somewhat finished fruits of our labors!

Not complete quite yet (still need plants for the green containers and a bit more mulch) BUT a marked improvement, right?

We replaced the dead hibiscus that resided in the pot with a very pretty tropical plant. 

So fresh and so clean.

I will continue to post updated results, including the soon-to-be ordered new outdoor lights discussed here.  My latest hunt is for a semi-large modern planter to hold a fern for our porch, to the right of the door.  I was hoping something in yellow or orange.  Any sourcing ideas?  I suspect I may have to get my trusty spray paint extension involved, per usual. 

I was thinking something like this, but in the "tangelo" color.  That being said, in a non-suprising turn of  

events, it is weirdly pricey. 

   

I am also a sucker for a bullet planter, but, again, not so so easy on the wallet. 

I hope this short post inspires you to get outside and get your hands dirty, even if you have a black thumb like me. Simple skill-less weeding and mulching made a huge huge difference.   Indeed, we have sprung into Spring at Chez Haynes!   

Cheers,

JSH

P.S.  Excitingly, Craig, Indiana Jones of New Orleans, even uncovered this while helping us weed. 

   

I think it should be given a place of importance as part of our backyard landscaping.

Not sure if you have ever seen one of these before.  When pieced together, they look like this.

New Orleans water meter covers have become an iconic symbol of New Orleans life.  You can literally find about  1,000 "must have" items with our water meter covers on them.  Jewelry, welcome mats, mugs, bas relief versions to hang on your walls, you name it.  They are quite special, and I consider it a sign of luck if you have one on the sidewalk or driveway of your property.  We don't have a real water meter cover in front of our house, but I think the archelogically-discovered one may be cooler in my book.  (We also have a soft spot for water meter covers because what other state is featured on the water meter?  Indiana!  Wabash, Baby!)