The World Is Abloom...

...or at least our yard is.

Andrew and I looked around our yard one day and realized that some rather ordinary-looking bushes (for most of the year) have suddenly burst into color.  And, we did hedge our bets by planting additional flowers this year, going for pretty annuals as opposed to the veggies we grew last year.  Discouraged by the amount of animals that ended up nibbling on what we grew outside last year, we've limited our vegetable growing this year to a few potted tomato plants, and a lone zucchini plant.

Consider this a visual tour of our front yard but I'll warn you already, I don't know the name of half the things (ok, most of the things) in our yard!

To the left of our front door, all sorts of beautiful perennials that continue to amaze us each year:

These poor things did not hold up well to the windy weather and thunderstorms we had last week, which blew them into this position:

Can I tell you how much I adore the green glaze on this pots and the periwinkle color of these flowers? Just a little spots of color to say welcome:

On the opposite side of the yard, alongside the fence, there were plenty of gaps to fill from our misguided weeding efforts last year (Andrew and I are positive that some perennial plants were accidentally - ahem - removed):

Moving further along, I stuck a row of different colored gerber daisies - only one seems to be thriving right now, but I'm happy to report that there are other small blooms pushing their way up on the neighboring plants (you'll have to take my word for it!):

Facing this area, back on the right-hand side of our front entryway, is a tiny row of spunky pink and white blooms that I've planted in a row:

You can see them better against the backdrop of the purple-toned perennials.  I always thought these perennials were kind of ugly even though I like the color of their foliage but as it turns out, I'm pretty these are set to blossom soon due to the stalks you may be able to make out:

Andrew is particularly proud of this hulking rhododendron at the edge of yard that borders the park - he trimmed it back earlier in the year, which we believe has caused it to bloom more than it did last year. The small bushes you see in front of it (to the left) are hydrangea bushes which bloom later in the summer (from what we remember happened last year):

Even the climbing vines on the fence have gotten the memo about flowers, as I noticed tiny white flowers appearing on the bottom of this cluster:

Taking a walk round the house to the back, we find Andrew cleaning the deck and stairs with our powerful new water hose - that small plot of land in the back has tiny morning glory plants popping up (one of my personal favorites), which we hope will grow to cover the whole back trellis section:

Andrew's beloved grapevines are also thriving - we were pretty sure they would survive the winter, but weren't entirely convinced until we saw buds pop up everywhere:



This concludes the tour of the outdoor portion of our house. Congratulations to you for not being bored stiff and hanging in there until the end.  If you're wondering about the one side of the house that I didn't show, it's actually the site of one of Andrew's pet projects and I'm trying to convince him to write a guest post on it.  If I'm successful, you should be reading it sometime this week.  As encouragement, please leave a comment below encouraging Andrew to do it!