Yard Transformation Update

It’s been about 2 months since I completed the 6 week Yard Transformation Challenge, which was hosted by my friend Nat at Simple Family Crazy Life. So I thought I would check in and give you an update. Just in case you missed it here are all 6 glorious weeks!

Lawn

Full props go to Greg for the lawn. He really is the lawn-king! Here is his secret:

Fertilize
Fertilize
Fertilize

Okay, we do have in ground sprinklers which definitely helps.Truthfully, I think he fertilizes a bit too much, but you really can’t argue with results, can you? Here are our favourite lawn products

Scotts Turf Builder Lawn Food, 5,000-sq ft (Lawn Fertilizer)
Scott’s Lawn Response 911
Miracle-Gro Garden Feeder with 1-Pound All Purpose Plant Food (Plant Fertilizer)

Take a look at the before and after photos.

Before:

After

Those Lillies are pretty crazy too!!

Here are a few tricks that we have learned along the way:

Best to water between 4-10AM
Keep your mower on a higher setting in summer
Water less often to grow stronger longer roots

Staining the Fence and Garden Planters

Here is a shot of the finished product

We stained the fence with BEHR Semi-Transparent Stain . It is super water resistant and it looks great! Take a look at how it turned out, and I only did one coat. I was just not willing to paint the fence twice 🙂 That is why I use Behr products, they have phenomenal coverage. Also here are some of the other items that made my job easier
Shur-Line 1791257 Deck Stain Pad with Groove Tool
PurdyTrim Paint Brush

Solar Post Caps

We also finally got around to replacing the solar post caps on the fence posts. We actually had these same ones when we moved in, but they didn’t work. So we bought 4 new ones. But once we cleaned off the solar panels and cleaned all of the cobwebs and dirt out of them they started working again! Yay! So now we have 6 of them!! We were going to use 2 of them on the front gate, But then we decided that we don’t really want to invite people into our secret garden because they’ll disturb the unicorns 🙂 So we are going to use all of them in the back yard. I LOVE LOVE LOVE these, they are so beautiful and classy! You can order yours HERE!

Pressure Washing the deck

We did purchase a new Gas Pressure Washer to use for the fence, and I melted the hose 🙁 the first week we had it. But I finally got a new hose, and I used it to pressure wash our back patio. It worked great. It’s much more powerful than my little Electric Pressure Washer. But I still love it for small jobs. Plus it worked great around all the roses and trellises when I was pressure washing the fence before staining. So, I think the moral of the story is that you can’t have too many pressure washers.

Roses

When we moved into this house in November, I didn’t know what varieties the roses were. But over time I discovered almost all of the tags for them buried under the soil near the roots of the plants. Big shout out to the former owner of our house, for leaving the tags on them Here are the varieties that I have since identified:

Sugar Moon hydrid tea rose

Secret hybrid tea rose

Purple Climbing Splash climbing rose

I still have about four that I haven’t yet identified… maybe next year.If you happen to know what variety these are feel free to drop me a comment below!!

Add colour

This was a two-part plan.

Part One

I added some pops of colour using garden ornaments, including my peacock which I LOVE!! And I also added another small orange bird. I’m also planning on adding some contrast colour to the furniture that I bought, I will post more on that project soon!

Part Two

The other piece was to add some colour using annuals. Although my gardens are so full of perennials, that it’s almost a struggle to find spots to tuck in any annuals. But I persevered and triumphed.

They have such cool colour combinations for petunias. This one is called Blackberry Cheesecake

Furniture

In Week 6, I bought this patio furniture. I love this little seating area, and spend many of my mornings enjoying my coffee out here, watching the hummingbirds drink from the fountain.

I bought this set at Lowe’s, but they don’t carry it any more. Here are some similar styles from Wayfair.

I am in the process of adding accent cushions to the furniture for a pop of colour and to tie it together with my Daybed which I painted a similar grey. I’ll be posting another update on all of this soon!

Shed

In week 5 I got my garden tool storage wall completed which I love, and by the way it is still perfect a year later – Yes!

I also added a garden workbench and storage “tower” . I still have a bit more organizing to do in here. I’ll provide some more updates on the shed in upcoming posts. But here is how it’s looking so far.

Thank for stopping in. I have a couple more posts I’m still putting together for the shed and the garden furniture. so, keep your eyes opened for those.

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