Working on my green thumb

So I have accomplished a couple garden projects over the last couple weeks that I wanted to share.  Nothing major, but, hey, it's a start!

Several months ago, Cameron and I started talking about trying out a small garden.  With our rambunctious dogs, a planter box would be a necessity in order to keep their little paws out.  Cameron was able to use some old wood from a friend's deck renovation to build the planter, so the dirt was the most expensive part.  Ideally, I would have left it a natural wood color, but some of the boards already had some white paint on them.  I toyed with painting it a bright, fun color, but in the end decided I would be happier with neutral brown.  We planted mint, basil, rosemary, cherry tomatoes, regular tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, and okra. 

I'd love to say that's how my little garden planter still looks, but less than 24hours after planting it, a tomato plant was destroyed with muddy pawprints left as evidence.  So we now have it surrounded by chicken wire.  Certainly not the most attractive, but the plants are staying where they're supposed to and actually starting to grow!  (and yes, those are kayaks hanging on the side of our shed.  They aren't exactly easy to store when they're not being used!)  I am planning on surrounding the base with monkey grass to pretty it up a bit!

For my second project, I attempted some planters by the front door.  I have wanted big, black urn planters for our front porch for at least a year, but everytime I found some I liked, I did not like the price tag.  While scoping out plants for the garden, I found these at Lowes.  Cute, lightweight, and only $25.  I'll take two!
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After getting Mom's approval that they were an appropriate size for my porch, I picked out some plants for them.  Because they sit next to the door, they don't get much sun (although I'm now realizing they get more than I originally thought), so I looked for things that do ok with shade.  I went with coleus, an orangey-pink begonia, and white impatients.

I'm liking the way they turned out.  Now I have to see how they fill in.  I'm worried it may be a tad crowded, but not bad for my first attempt!

Since I have yet to share many pictures of our house, here's a picture from when we first bought the house 2 years ago.  It hasn't changed much to be honest, except the Alabama flag was replaced with a MUCH more attractive Auburn one. :)  Unfortunately, the tree to the right is starting to die and will likely need to be cut down soon, preferably before hurricane season gets here.  I'm dreading it because the trees were part of what attracted me to the house to begin with.  The plan this fall is to redo the flowerbeds - move the larger wild azaleas to the back yard and plant some new bushes.

As for the backyard, we've been experimenting with a patch of sod and so far have kept it alive for about a month.  We are seriously considering resodding the backyard, and then maybe we will FINALLY have grass back there!  Then there's the topic of actually planting something in the flowerbeds we laid out last year...but that's a whole other post on its own.