Flower Power to the Rescue!

Flower Power Garden Designs is a company started by Teresa Corley. Their numbers are (334) 285-1759 and (334) 782-5651. They redid our backyard which desperately needed it!

This is what they did in our backyard: dug up 2 roses and oleander, trimmed lower limbs from bradford pear tree, prepared the beds for planting, dug holes for shrubs, laid weed guard, replant oleander and red rose, laid stepping stones and pea gravel at gate entrances and installed edging around all beds (approximately 110 feet).

The shrubs they planted were: 2 pink knock out roses, 2 pink double althea (rose of Sharon), 7 Indian hawthorne (white or snow), 7 pink and white encore azaleas, 1 pink crape myrtle, and plant 2 cleyera and 1 crape myrtle we already had.

I really am almost embarrassed to put the "before" pictures of our backyard. I think it looked really nice...many years ago. Lately, not so much. And I absolutely love sitting out on the patio during the fall weather and enjoying the day.

So, as you can tell by the photos we needed some serious help with the backyard. My friend Jan had just had her backyard done by Teresa Corley of Flower Power Garden Design and she had so many good things to say about her. Based on Jan's recommendation, whose opinion I always trust, I made the call, got an estimate and got ready for a new yard!

The bradford pear tree had become so overgrown! It was awful! Even the grass looked bad.

About the only one who liked the backyard was little Bodhi :-).

Could it be more blah??!!!

I love to watch the birds and we have several birdhouses that Rob fills regularly with birdseed and we get so many beautiful birds! All we had planted was one oleander and a rose bush.

Boring and blah, blah, blah.

I was so excited when Teresa said they could come soon!

I get confused on the order to upload pictures sometimes in blogger, so here is an after already

:-). Bodhi is looking like he is in a new backyard...and, for all practical purposes, he is!

It already looked so much better just when they cleared so much overgrowth from the bradford pear.

Wow, isn't this like night and day?

I know to most people this may not seem like a big deal, but I just LOVE the changes. It is just so nice and so peaceful in the backyard now.

I really loved the pebbles Teresa put down and the landscaping pavers at each gate creating a little walkway. And I really liked the edging she picked out. Normally, I am totally "hands-on" and have input on exactly what to pick out, but, on this project, I just asked Teresa to pick everything out and I had no decisions to make.

This is the project in progress. They worked so hard!

Another after. Since they put the edging all the way around, it made the backyard feel bigger I thought as well as just making it look more manicured.

Rob lost his Mom in August 2009. This was a gift from her and we love having it in our yard now.

A closeup of the angel birdbath.

I loved these edgers. Teresa got them from Lowes.

Isn't this adorable???!!!

I kept thinking to myself, "Why didn't we do this before now?!"

Here is the farthest corner after. It used to pretty much be a black hole.

We already had these plants but Teresa trimmed them down and they look a lot better, too.

Teresa planted us two knockout roses and they are so pretty!

This is our new view looking out from the patio. Such an improvement! We are so thankful!

FRONT YARD:

I wish I had before pictures for the front yard makeover. After the backyard turned out so nice, we asked Flower Power to do the front yard, too. We had this huge section in front of the center of the house that had all these dead shrubs with all these weeds growing up from them. They looked like a jungle. Teresa dug those old shrubs up and planted some new ones.

Flower Power planted five variegated pittosporum, two bridal wreath snow storm spirea, two sasanqua/camellias, three kaleidscope abelias, and three half moon pansy beds.

Trust me, it looks sooo much better!

Teresa picked out this red edging from Lowes called "perfect edge." I really liked it, especially the color. It was made by Calisto.

Fall Decorating

I just love fall! It is my absolute favorite season of the year. I love the cool temperatures and the gorgeous reds, oranges and yellow hues of the falling leaves. Of course, football is great, too!

I did some decorating for fall inside and out. God willing, next year I will probably do more decorating after I buy some things on sale after the season is over.

We definitely needed some more pine straw for the beds around the house. We got about 40 bales from this company that was located off Ryan Road next to the Chantilly Wal-mart. He was really a nice guy. It was $5 a bale delivered.

We got the last pinestraw left for the day!

The guy did such a great job of delivering the pinestraw. He put it exactly where it needed to be to be put out later.

Where did this come from this year? Kirklands, of course! I love the color orange and I love pumpkins.

Another find at Kirklands - I love topiaries and I thought these were adorable!

How can you celebrate fall without mums? The wreath was from Kirklands.

I pulled out my scarecrow man and used him again this year.

This year we gave the scarecrow man a girlfriend. He looks much happier now!

I used this outside last year but decided to use it inside this year. I love this. I got it at Wal-mart several years ago.

A Sunday Afternoon at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival

It's an amazing blessing that the city has such a beautiful park for us all to use for no charge. It is always so nicely maintained.

I love going over this bridge and the sound it makes when you go over it.

The stones are so pretty.

Wow, how beautiful...a modern day castle.

It always makes me smile when I see people feeding the ducks - especially the kids.

We couldn't wait to see how Bodhi reacted to the ducks. Most of them are bigger than Bodhi!

I still remember this location as the place our dear friends Michael and Lisa Jones had their wedding reception.

Bodhi did go for a walk...but he kept close to Rob.

We were proud of Bodhi. He is usually so hesitant but he did some exploring.