Southern girl plowing her way through life making the rules up as she goes. Warning: likes to bake, curse, quote movies/literature, is tattooed, married to The Man and mother of two girls. We bring new meaning to the "griswald way of life". Come along for the ride!



Saturday, April 18, 2009

Curb Appeal

So I did some time on the Homes & Gardens website, which is my crack lately. I just need my fix. And two points became obvious.


1. I live in a cookie cutter neighborhood. All the houses are 1 of 10 styles, they are all the in the same color family and since its a new neighborhood, there are no tree except the skinny little ones on the curbs that the city planted. Thus, my landscaping is the exact replica of all my neighbors, right down to the number of bushes and wood chips.
2. Colors: as I said the color is obviously the same of every other house.
So according to H&G, there are two immediate things I need to do to enhance my curb appeal.
Move and ... I'm kidding since it's apparent that me and this house will be together for awhile, thank you economy.
So yesterday I started on landscaping. I tore out most of the offending ugly stick shrubs and got busy.

I quick trip to Home Depot and I had the basics (in addition to the pine shrubs and tuplis I'd already planted). Notice my OCD method of prepping for work, everything is laid out nice and neatly, according to my list. Mental much?

I started with lots of new soil. Necessary I think. Then I added some spiky plants, don't ask me names, I lost all the tags. But I like the attitude of these babies. I also read that grouping in 2's and 3's are best. So I got 3. Cause I follow directions very well.

Color was necessary since my tulips haven't popped yet. So I got some calla lilies. 2 of them since they are like GOLD apparently. Damn.

Meet Steve, who has a twin also named Steve. (Over the Hedge watchers will recognize this) Duchess names them as a set apparently. Steve looked alot bigger at Home Depot but once planted he lost some height (say it with me, duh) but I still like them, even if they aren't as magestic as I thought they'd be. But I am helping them along, Miracle Gro folks. Plus so far, I've managed to beat the black thumb of death by using garden gloves....
The work continues today as I weed the flower bed, rake the backyard in prep of sod and get my weedeating done. I may even do some mowing, as it needs it, even if it is brown grass.
And I'm getting kicked off the computer cause Duchess wants to do webkinz. Peace out.