Daily Dose of Joy: Extreme Garden Makeover

My father-in-law is very handy. incredibly handy. If you read about our laundry room/bathroom addition, then you know he is our general contractor and our hired labor- all rolled into one!

Recently he helped out a friend with some things at their home. And when asked what they could give in return, the answer was "a garden for Ty and Kelley." I should add at this point that his friend owns a professional, commercial landscaping company. Oh and places like the Ritz Carlton hire his company.

So here's some before shots of our sweet cottage home.
Sorry, this one was at night. But allow me to point out a couple of things to you... the over grown "bush/tree" in front of the guest bedroom- making our house feel tiny. The utter lack of any other real bushes at all. just some short scraggily things... close ups in a second. Oh and please notice my wonderful husband cutting down the short scraggily things.

The morning before the crew arrives... here's the side of our home. a nice tangle of "Stuff" (you can see the garden hose we laid out defining where we would "like" a flower bed to be.)

once again, the over grown tree/bush. some more yucky bushes. my cute purse on the porch and my favorite red door.

The front of the house. This is next to the walk way. People actually had to look at this as they walked into our home. I'm starting to wonder why they ever came back. must have been the red front door.

in front of our new laundry room. Last year we planted a lot of seeds in this square. About 10 packets. Only the zinnias grew. This year we were building throughout the spring and this area was being trampled constantly, so I did not attempt to grow anything. Then one day, we had zinnias again! So I started watering them. And this year we had more zinnias than last year! It was an amazing surprise!! (we cut them all off and made bouquets for our home since this picture)

Here's the front of the house after the first day of work! The 2 man crew came over and in 1 hour and 10 minutes, they had cleared out ALL of the yucky stuff! ( they left the zinnias for one more week of beauty). Isn't it amazing how much bigger the house looks just plain!! Oh man oh man! The excitement was growing!!

And here's the finished product! (dont' worry, close ups are coming). Off to the left of the guest bedroom (far left window) is a magnolia tree. In front of the laundry room is a bright RED crepe myrtle (it matches the front door)

Our brand new flower bed!!! (remember the garden hose that was laid out? this is what became of it!!) Oh and by the way- this whole garden took a 4 man crew just over 6 hours. I think if I worked for the next 10 years it wouldn't look this good!

Here's looking under that guest bedroom window. There are some knock out roses (near the cute red buckets- which I've since filled with white vinca). in the far back is some bush that goes all the way out to the left and there are LOTS of them- don't know what they are called, but in the spring they bloom pink!! in the very very front is the lime green sweet potato vine. there's some decorative grass in the middle and some other flowers too. wish I knew all the names, I have so much to learn!!

Oh- a sweet little statue I found at Hobby Lobby last week. (also where I purchased the red buckets and a few other things you'll see shortly.) This statute is almost directly under the guest window and you can see it as you walk up the side walk.

at the turn in the sidewalk is this sweet little statue.

Here's the view as you walk up the sidewalk. Isn't it amazing!!!

So I had been growing this begonias in containers all spring. they've done great! but i had them all clustered awkwardly on the porche. The genius land scape men rearranged them up the stairs! so cool!! (and our new S flag - anniversary gift from dad and cindy)

The red crepe myrtle!! tons of flowers!! yellow lantana all along the sidewalk. knock out roses all along the sidewalk and wrapping around the porch. some really tall grass stuff on the right (you can barely see it) borders with the drive way.