Backyard & Side-yard Renovation Part 3: The Flower Beds

Well we are finally here, the last installment of the Backyard & Side-yard Renovation series! Today I'm going to show you what my husband and I have been up to these past few weeks...planting in our new flower beds! Like I mentioned before, we have two large flower beds - one in the front yard on the side of our house and one in the backyard on the same side of the house. The flower bed in the front yard hardly gets any sun so we decided on planting only flowers in that bed. The flower bed in the backyard gets midday sun, so we decided on only planting fruits and veggies in that bed. Plus, I've always wanted to grow my own vegetable garden and if it works out well enough maybe it will cut down on our grocery bill costs one day...we shall see!

Front yard: Before

Front yard: After

Euryops Green, Gerber Daisy, and Freesia

Freesia

Snapdragons

Petunias

Geraniums in the background and African Daisy in the foreground

'Minifamous Pink'

Lobelia

What's Growing in My Garden?

*Geraniums

*African Daisy

*Snapdragons

*Freesia

*Hydrangea (hasn't come up yet)

*Lots of Petunias

*Gerber Daisy

*Lobelia

*Calibrachoa "MiniFamous Pink' & 'Dark blue"

*Hollyhock

*Dianthus

*Euryops Green (Daisy-like flower)

*2 small bags of mixed seeds (hasn't come up yet)

Backyard: Before

Backyard: After

Blueberry Bush (Ray picked this one out)

Strawberry Crop

Is that a strawberry I see?

Corn

Cucumber

Green Peppers

Tomato 

Our first tomato! 

What's growing in my garden?

*Blueberry bush

*Strawberries

*Corn

*Cucumbers

*Green & Red Bell Peppers

*Jalapeno Peppers

*2 Tomato Plants

I even had my niece Kaitlyn help me in the garden...we planted maybe three plants before she was tired and bored of it all. After planting a second flower she says to me, "Aunt Britty, are we done yet?"

Kaitlyn ready to start digging!

Kaitlyn's pumpkin seeds that she planted, with some extra help from her Auntie.

Any projects that you have been up to lately? What's growing in your yard?

Backyard & Side-yard Renovation Part 2: The Patio

For the past two weeks my husband and I have been working on a major project: tackling our backyard & sideyard and totally renovating everything! We finished putting in new rock, new trees & bushes, two raised planter beds, a paved walk-way, and stepping stones. You can see the first part of our renovation here. Next on our to-do-list for the backyard was to install a patio cover. Having a patio cover is seriously a must for living in Las Vegas. Also considering the fact that we have a large sliding glass door and huge window downstairs that faces the sun the majority of the day/afternoon! It gets so hot downstairs in the summer! Last week we had our new patio cover installed! One guy from DURA-KOOL installed the whole thing in 8 hours! I was totally impressed and he did an awesome job too! We had DURA-KOOL install a solid and lattice patio cover: half & half. I'm amazed with how much light it blocks from coming into the house. It's also a lot cooler in our house too. This sounds really weird, but I'm excited to see our air-conditioning bills in the summer and how much money we might be saving now that we have a patio cover! Here are some before and after photos of our new patio!

Before

After

{Ant's eye-view of the lattice portion of our patio cover}

{Ant's eye-view of the solid portion of our patio cover}

{Our new patio furniture}

{Our finished patio!}

I've decided to make my Backyard & Side-yard Renovation a series in chapter installments. We are still not completely finished with our renovation. In the next chapter, we will tackle the flower beds!

What home projects have you been working on?

Backyard & Side-yard Renovation!

On March 23, I mentioned that we had our landscapers come over to trim our trees and also got estimates for putting in a patio cover. Well, we decided to have our landscapers come back this week to take out all our old rock, put new rock in, put new irrigation systems in, plant new plants in the backyard, lay brick for a planting bed on the side-yard in the back of the house and the front of the house, lay brick for a walk way, and also lay stepping stones. Seems like a huge project, I know, but it only took them three days and they're all finished! Next week, the patio cover people will be coming by to put up our patio cover. We weren't expecting them for another 3-4 weeks, but they are able to start right away. Plus, it only takes them a day to put up! My hubby and I are super excited with how everything is turning out. This weekend we will be going back to Lowe's, Home Depot, and Star Nursery for bedding plants and hopefully to find a patio set. Because we have two planting beds (one in the backyard on the side of the house and one in the front yard on the same side of the house) the planting bed in the backyard will be a vegetable garden and the planting bed in the front will be all flowers. Here is the patio set we are considering to get (btw the hubster really wants a fire pit):

Alright, now what you've all been waiting for...here are the before and after pictures of our renovation!

Before

Backyard: Left side of yard

Backyard: Left side of yard

Backyard: Middle of yard

Backyard: Middle of yard

Backyard: Right side of yard

Backyard: side-yard

Front-yard: Side-yard

After

Backyard: Left side of yard - new Lime Citrus Tree & Azalea bushes

Close-up of Azalea plant

Backyard: Center of yard - new plants

Middle of yard - new Bouganvilla plants

Middle of yard - new Bouganvilla plants

Close-up of Bouganvilla bush

Backyard: Right side of yard - new Orange Citrus Tree

Backyard: Side-yard - new rock, stepping stones, & brick planting bed

Side-yard close-up

Side-yard - stepping stones/new rock

Front-yard: Side-yard - new rock, brick walkway, & brick planting bed

Close-up of brick planting bed

Close-up of brick walkway

What do you guys think? Have you done any recent home renovation projects?