It's not a green thumb... it's a green pinkie

If anyone remembers, last year I spent a lot of time working on these flower beds out by the pool. When we had the patio designed, we purposely had them make 2 empty spaces, one on either side of the pool, in the cement to give us a place for landscaping and flowers. Last year the flowers looked great, but I had decided to do rock in the beds, instead of mulch, for fear that the mulch would fly into the pool with too much wind. However, something worse happened, which did not depend on the weather - Ava developed a bad habit of amusing herself while throwing the rocks into the pool. This did not make either of us happy, so finally I decided the beds needed a complete overhaul.

I should have started taking pictures from the very beginning, to document what I was starting with. But let me just tell you... it was a mess, and a lot of work. This "before" picture was actually after several long hours of pulling out dead foliage from last year, and scooping several wagon loads of rock, along with some dirt, out of the beds. Aagghh... I think my back is still recovering.


So new dirt was laid, new plants were planted, new mulch was... well, mulched. And here you have it... the finished product. And with all the rain we have had lately (thank you, Midwestern flooding for sparing us more than our fair share) they have really spread out more than in these pictures and look really good.



And the best part is... Ava hasn't bothered to touch the mulch one bit. And none of it has ended up in the pool yet. The cutest thing is Ava likes to "pick flowers for Mommy" and brings me snippets of leaves and a few blooms inside the house and lays them in my hands. So cute!