Outside: Making it Beautiful

I am not a gardener. I wish I knew at least one thing about it. It seems confusing to me. This plant needs partial sun, not a lot of water and needs to be planted 10 inches away from something else. This other flower needs sun all day long and a ton of water. Let's not forget to note what region of the country you're in so we know if you get frost for 10 months out of the year. Plant this one in the fall, this one in the spring and this one on July 7th. Start this one inside of your home and move outside. Ahhhhh!

However, I have always wanted flowers and beautiful landscaping to surround my home. One of the things we loved about our new house was that it already had good landscaping bones. Our last two houses were awful in this department so we were super excited to have it look this nice already.

Let's be real, it needs some color! So I started off with some hanging plants for the porch. This area doesn't get much sunlight so I needed a plant that would live with partial sunlight. I really wanted a yellow flower to make this area pop but my choices were super limited with my partial sunlight need.

I found these beautiful red Begonias for about $8 each.

Next up was a potted plant. I picked up this pot for $15 at a store called At Home in Ann Arbor, MI. This store is awesome. It looks just like a Lowe's but is filled with things to decorate the inside and outside of your home. A dream come true for me. :)

Definitely not pretty at all. So I busted out my secret weapon... spray paint!! I chose black in a satin finish.

A couple of coats did the trick and she looks like a new piece. As you can see, I didn't spray paint the entire inside because you won't see it with all the dirt and flowers in there.

I picked up some potting soil and a variety of flowers including petunias, geraniums and raspberry surprise dianthus. I chose beautiful reds and purples. Some of the flowers haven't bloomed yet.

I saw this trick somewhere so I decided to try it. You take all of your plant containers and fill up your pot with them. This makes it so that you don't need as much soil but also gives the roots some room to grow. I figured why not since I don't really know what I'm doing anyways. :)

I knew right where I wanted this beauty. There was a hideous stone in between our garage doors. Not sure what prompted this to live there but it was there when we moved in.

And bam! Instant transformation. I put the dianthus in the middle for some height. Followed by the red geraniums and then the purple petunias around the outside edge.

Let's not forget to mention the lovely chalk art that my daughter drew. :)

 

I spent about $46 for the flowers, potting soil and two hanging baskets. Then another $15 for the pot itself. Definitely not a super cheap project but these flowers make me smile every time I pull into the driveway.

Please ignore the blue garage doors. Those are hopefully on my summer to do list but we'll see if I make it there.

Side note: why does my camera not like the siding on my house?! I swear the siding is straight in real life!

If you have any suggestions about gardening or flowers in general, please leave me a comment. I will take all the help I can get. :)