Outdoor Updates... flowers!

This year... has been a doozy. It's been wonderful. It's been dire. There's been joy and sorrow. We've had big highs and terrible lows. Big adventures and small. Hellos and goodbyes. There are things I want to share, but everything is so tangled up and emotional that I'm not even sure where to begin to pick it apart. This will forever be the year that Mike's dad passed away unexpectedly. We are so sad and grief is complicated and heavy, it comes in waves. And life doesn't pause, it doesn't stop for anything... until it does. 

The garden brings such joy and peace to me during the tough times, the busy times, the happy times... so let's talk about the flowers in yard! I need the distraction, the balm for my soul. And in July and August we hit peak flowers and it's beautiful in our little oasis. 

Everything but the dahlias are perennials, coming back year after year on their own. This year, more than ever, I really appreciated the past work to build up the yard to this degree so it looks like this without adding much to it. I completely overbooked myself and I just didn't have the bandwidth to do more than plant the dahlias, stake a few plants and mulch (which took months to finish, whoops). 

Front yard

In late June (first 2 pictures) the astilbe was blooming beautifully, the rest of the flowers I planted out front were getting established. It's a mix of things - annuals like lantanas, dalinovas, snapdragons, bachelor buttons and perennials like the astilbe, echinachea, columbines, balloon flowers and the new jacob's ladder and golden alexander. 

By August everything really filled in - see the difference below. 

Flower Pots

I'm really happy with our front porch flowers. The blue pots and the array of colorful flowers really come together nicely. The front porch begonias have been overwintered for a couple years now and keep coming back strong from the greenhouse. 

In the backyard the flower pots are a mix of old and new flowers. Things overwintered, new seedlings, and a few flowers from the nursery. I have them on the patio and on the deck. There are fewer pots than last year but still enough to make an impact and gives the patio and deck a really nice vibe. 

At Night

Mike and the boys gave me those garden firefly solar lights for my birthday. You mix them into the plants and it's so pretty when they come on at dusk. It's very tricky to photograph in low light but they are beautiful and add so much ambiance to the backyard when we're on the patio in the evening under strings of globe lights. 

Bonus Flowers

Lastly here are a few bonus flower pictures because they are just SO PRETTY. I'm going to miss all this color when summer starts to wind down in a few weeks.