Hello, Tree. Hello, Sweet Pea.

We’ve been revelling in the blue sky and sunshine that has recently come to shine on us.  I have the sunburn to prove it…

Saturday was our outdoor patio project day, and it was so good to cross a bunch of things off “the list”.  {Really, we don’t have one!}

I mentioned earlier that a storm blew over a big beautiful tree by our front patio.  I was so sad, but there wasn’t anything we could do about it…

Except to buy a new tree.

Oh, boy.  I’ve never bought a tree before and was horrified by the prices.  A Japanese Maple was my first choice, but the $68 and $98 price tags just weren’t working for me.  Lo and behold, we found one the other day for $24.99.  {Hallelujah!}

The big ol’ tree falling caused a mess in the flower bed.

Roots and rocks were everywhere.  The first item of business was to get it all back together again and start fresh.

Then, in went the tree and a few other bushes and flowers.

Hello, beautiful new tree…

Then we needed to tackle this flower bed.  I love it in Spring when all those bulbs come up, but then it just seems messy to me!

So we cleared a path the same width as the other flower bed, added some more soil, and planted some of my bargain flowers and transplanted other things from different flower beds.

I like to have “happy flowers” smiling at me when I walk out my front door, so that row in the front is purple and yellow pansies. They should fill out nicely….

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And behind them are some sweet peas with their own custom lattice.

Our son cut some branches down for us.  We pounded them into the ground, nailed a top on, and  “laced” jute up the sides to look like “ballerina slippers”…{well, that’s what I was envisioning anyway!}

There’s more to show, but I’ll wait til tomorrow.

Here’s a quick full view of the beds:

Before:

And after:

Ah, so much better.  Now if only the weeds would stay out!…