Bright Backyard Engagement Party

This past weekend we hosted a big engagement party for Kevin's sister Marielle. She and Chris got engaged a few months ago, but this was the first time everyone was able to get together to really celebrate! They are planning a destination wedding at the beach next April, so this was a great party for everyone that could make it.

Engagement Party Invitation via Etsy

The party was held on Sunday afternoon, it was a beautiful day and actually almost hot!  We were so glad that there wasn't rain, especially since most of the party took place in the backyard.  When I started planning, I wanted to go with a garden party theme, incorporating bright fun colors. I think we achieved that pretty well. Everyone had a great time and commented on all of the details. 

Drink table outside on the deck

Tables on the lawn

Beautiful peonies in mason jars for flowers

Drink station with lots of DIY details

Mimosa bar!

Sangria, yum

Custom reusable cups for the party!

Flowers in mason jars on each table

Gorgeous coral peonies

Tables on the lawn, and lawn games in the background

DIY chalkboard sign

Playing cornhole

Family at the party

The newly engaged couple!

Dessert table, with custom sugar cookies

Beautiful cake with custom cake topper

Cutting the cake

Advice cards for the couple

It was a fabulous party, I know that everyone had a lot of fun! :) Congratulations Marielle and Chris!!

Sources: 
Invitation: Etsy
Cake: Simply Cakes, NC
Rentals: Party Reflections
Cake Topper: Etsy
Cups: Stadium Cups
Flowers: Fifty Flowers

More posts to come featuring the recipes and DIY projects that made the party a success!

Spring is in the air!

Well, it's been forever since I've blogged! Sorry about that! I am back with an update (and lots of pictures) about what's going on in our yard now that Spring has finally decided to stick around. We had a couple of late season hard freezes last week :( but most of my plants have made it through.

We planted our veggies in our raised garden bed a few weeks ago. We always get our plants from the local farmers' market, where they are usually great quality and inexpensive. I also supplemented with some more things from Home Depot after these pictures. Our raised garden bed is still in great shape after making it last year. Click here for the post on how to make your own DIY raised garden bed. 

We also planted herbs in our planter boxes on the deck. These are doing well and I've already used many of them in our recipes. I love having easy access to so many wonderful herbs. 

So, the list of all of the edible things we have growing this year are:

Roma tomatoes

Heirloom tomatoes

Zucchini

Straight neck yellow squash

Pickling cucumbers

Bibb lettuce

Rosemary

Sweet Basil

Kentucky Colonel Mint

Oregano (2 types)

Thyme (2 types)

Chives

Dill

I also have some seedlings that I started from seed using a technique called Winter Sowing. This didn't go so well this year, because they got too hot in their mini greenhouses on a day where it got above 80 back at the end of March!! The seedlings that did survive though are coming along, but still fairly small. There, I have planted mostly wildflowers, lavender, zinnia, dianthus, etc. I tried a few veggies from seed, but I have come to the conclusion that it's better to just wait and buy seedlings from the farmers' market than bother with seeds that don't grow strong enough. 

Winter Sowing containers aka mini green houses

Elsewhere in my garden, my roses are doing great. They are enjoying the weather recently and most of them have buds, ready to explode. I added a few more David Austin Roses this year, I love their fragrance and shape.  I also had a bunch of tulips planted with the roses this year. I love that the tulips come up right as the roses are taking off. A new perennial that I added was purple pincushion. This should bloom most of the season and I think it will be good contrast with the roses. 

First bloom of the season on April 23rd!

Roses and tulips in early April

Purple pincushion

The rest of my beds of tulips did awesome this year. I had planted a bunch more bulbs and started planting them in bunches for more effect. I had so many that I even had enough to give away to friends!

Red tulips in early April

I also have Lamb's Ear and Dusty Miller going this year. The Lamb's Ear is awesome, I have split these so many times and it still keeps producing. I love the velvety texture of the leaves and the purple flowers that they produce attract a lot of bees.

Well that's a lot and it wasn't even everything that I have growing right now! I am really enjoying my garden this year. We have a big party planned in a couple of weeks at our house and I am excited for everyone to see all of the plants and flowers blooming.

Not how I wanted to spend my Thursday night...

We got some strong storms last night, even though they only lasted for a few minutes.  I was on my way home from work and stopped at the grocery store to get out of the weather and pick up something we could eat without cooking, since we had already lost power at home.

Well, I arrived home after the storm cleared to find a tree (well part of a tree) down in our front yard! :(

So, quickly our plans for the night went from not much at all, to yard clean up and tree removal.  My dad came over with his chainsaw and we cut away branches slowly in order to get things out of the yard.  The back half of the tree was still hanging on, so we didn't want to leave a hazard in our yard. After a while, we had a huge pile of branches on our driveway and a log hanging from the tree. My husband and dad managed to get it out and cut it into logs. We were pretty impressed with what we were able to accomplish before dark! 

Now, we have to decide what to do with the remaining part of the tree. There is still a decent amount of tree growing, but it may not survive the split. If not, we'll have to get the whole thing removed... so we'll see what happens! Keep your fingers crossed that it can pull through and leaf back out to fill in the hole.  

So, now we have a huge pile of debris that we need to get removed, but luckily our town is doing special pickups of storm damage. So I think they'll come get it this weekend... whew! But, we are so thankful that even though part of the tree came down and it left an ugly hole, at least it didn't fall on the house or hurt anyone!!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Around my garden

It has rained so much in the last few days! We got more than 5" on Friday alone... I'm ready for us to get back to a normal weather pattern. So, since we've had a ton of rain and all of our plants are growing a lot right now, I thought I'd post some pictures of the yard. These were all taken with my iPhone, so they're not the best, but I think some are actually pretty good.

Rainfall in our area this month... way above normal! source

My roses are doing well, they have all already bloomed at least once, most are on to their second round of buds. I don't know why roses get such a bad rap for being difficult to grow. If you spend just a little time tending to them/dead-heading throughout the season and keep them disease free, they will bloom all summer long! Last year, my roses produced beautiful buds way into October.

Our new rose garden that we added earlier this spring

Although, many of my long stemmed roses and David Austin's don't like getting strong pouring rain, the blooms get heavy and they tend to face downwards after a storm. They'll perk up in a day or so with some good sunshine.

David Austin Heritage

Here are some pictures of roses I've cut and brought inside. They are so fragrant and really brighten up my kitchen!

David Austin Abraham Darby and Gertrude Jekyll 

About a year ago, we planted lamb's ear on the side garden area of our deck. It's doing awesome in that spot. I love the silver green color of the leaves and the contrast that it makes with the other plants in the garden.

We moved a hydrangea in our back yard earlier this spring, planting it next to the other that we have, and it is doing really well. When we replanted it, we gave it lots of compost and good soil, which has actually turned the color of the blooms slightly more purple/pink because the soil is more alkaline than the red clay that the other one is planted in. I'm actually really excited about this, because now we will have more variation of hydrangea colors this summer! I can't wait to cut a bunch of these and bring them inside! Read more about changing the color of your hydrangea here, if you're interested.

Our vegetable garden is doing awesome! We planted things a little too close together at the beginning (but we knew that when we did it- in case things didn't make it and because the seedlings were so cheap).  I've taken a couple of plants out to make room and it's still overflowing; but everything is thriving at this point, so we're happy. We have already gotten tons of cucumbers and the squash and zucchini are starting to produce as well.  There are lots of roma tomatoes on the vines which just need to ripen and turn red.  When they do, I'm excited to make lots of tomato sauce and maybe some fresh salsa! We've already made some marinated cucumbers/pickles with our crop of cucumbers, yum!

On our back deck, we have marigolds, zinnias, and herbs planted in our bay window planter. On the other side of the railing in this picture, you can see that the butterfly bush is growing like crazy. I think it's grown at least a couple feet since last week and still will at least double or triple in size by the summer. I love that is provides some extra privacy when we're hanging out on our back deck, in addition to the beautiful butterflies that it brings.

If anyone is curious how the grass in our front yard is doing after sodding last summer... well, it's doing great! That project, posted here, was so much work to do ourselves, but it really has paid off. It is so green and really feels like a carpet when you walk on it.

Well, that's it for most of the things we have growing around the house. Hope you enjoyed the garden tour ;)