Welcome to our neck of the woods! If you haven't seen pictures already, this is the cute little house we have been renting for almost a year now. Sterling and I celebrated our 1 year anniversary on the 19th of this month. The first three months of our marriage we stayed with Sterling's mother Lisa.
I have attempted to become a gardener this year. It all started in February when we had unusually warm weather and I became infected with spring fever. I went to Home Depot and got stuff to start planting sunflowers. Then more things caught my interest and now I have lots of flowers!
This is one of two of my pride and joys. This is one of the sunflower sprouts I started in February. This beauty is a mammoth sunflower and is supposed to live up to its name and grow over 6 feet tall. Right now it is almost to my knee. Only two from my February group have grown this big. We'll get to the other ones in a few minutes, but I'm happy with the progress these two are making. It's also planted in front of our living room window, so when it gets to its full potential, we will be able to enjoy it from inside!
This is one of my four rose bushes. This one is actually the runt of the group. Dixie accidentally looped her lead around it and pulled it out of the ground making a run for the door. I thought she killed it because it didn't start sprouting again for weeks. But luckily within the last two weeks or so it decided to come back around. This one happens to be kind of special. Sterling's grandmother on his mom's side used to have a pretty peach colored rose bush at her house. Unfortunately Zoie's dog Onyx chewed it up and destroyed it. So when I went to Home Depot I found this one that is supposed to be a peachy pink color and I'm hoping it can attempt to replace the rose bush the dog ruined. Let's hope it works!
These are just some random flowers that I bought at a little local greenhouse in Burlington. A church member and her son run it so I was trying to help them out a little with my business. They're supposed to bloom red. I'm not really sure what kind of flower it is though.
This is one of two of my yellow rose bushes. I'm excited to see it bloom.
This is one of three of my Peony bushes. It's funny because the locals down her pronounce them (PEE-OH-NEES) where in Ohio we pronounce them (PEE-UH-NEES) so the first time I told Sterling what I bought he was like huh? Panties? (Insert eye roll) he's a goober.
Fun fact: my mom has a bleeding heart bush in her front yard! So naturally I had to follow suit and buy one for myself. ($3 at Walmart if you're interested) I had fun watching this one grow. It's pink and white just like my mama's and it's been growing super fast.
Sterling and I are planning to build our own raised flower bed. I got us some cucumber and tomato plants to put in it. I hate tomatoes but Sterling enjoys them. I'm hoping to attempt to grow some watermelons and maybe some cantaloupe's too.
My friend Kaytie and I had fun shopping at some plant nursery's before this Rona thing became a problem.
Last year when my parents came to visit, they brought me a little oak tree sprout. It's a relative to the tree in their back yard. I'm hoping to see some leaf growth on it soon. It started turning a little green at the top so I'm crossing my fingers.
This is my other yellow rose bush. This one has grown the most out of all four. It's also the one that has been getting a lot of visits from the caterpillars. I reached out to my grandma Robin and she said if I spray some soapy water on them and diligently pull the caterpillars off as often as I can, it should help keep them healthy.
My idea here was to line my yard with as many sunflowers as possible. These are the rest of my February batch of sunflowers. I now see that my idea was a little flawed. Since I only dug a hole big enough to plant them, it made it harder for the roots to grow because the ground is packed. If I would have plowed deeper and around them more, it would have allowed them to grow faster. I would say these ones are about half the size of the two big ones in my flower beds. But at least they are still growing. Slowly but surely. The other bad thing is they seem to be getting a little too much water with all the rain. So the leaves have been turning a tad yellow.
This is one of two Azalea bushes. I have one on each side of the driveway. This one has had a few blossoms on it so far. I'm also in the works of getting a weed eater. I mowed around it with my push mower, but you can't get close enough. But another fun fact: my mom also has azalea bushes outside her house. She has a pink and a purple one. I was only able to find pink, red, orange, and white. The white ones were too expensive so I stuck with pink.
I have to say this is one of my favorite sunflowers out in the yard. I call it my tri-wizard cup sunflower. Can you tell why? Ever since it first sprouted, it had three leaves on it instead of only two. It's also the smallest one out there. I'm thinking about digging it back up and putting it in a pot to make sure it grows properly.
And here is my little gnome! He's been working hard to protect my garden from snakes and other creepy creatures. Way to go Bob!
And this is another repeat picture of my prize sunflower. I'm so happy with how fast it's growing. If you can't tell, sunflowers are one of my favorite flowers! I wish I would have learned to grow them before now. But hey, there's always time to learn something new.
