Lots of spring activity in these parts.  I'd like to forget life for a few days & just sit outside and paint.  I am in absolute awe of the beauty surrounding us in our yard.  

The dogwoods, lenten roses, and woodland iris are doing their thing.  

The hostas & hydrangeas are stretching their leaves out of the earth...     

And I am over the moon about my 

Chinese Snowball!!!

Good things going down in our yard....

         My hydrangeas are a commin' :)

With temperatures dangerously close to 100 degrees lately, I welcomed the torrential down pour last night.  I woke up to a luscious green landscape and immediate went out to check our garden.  Do you remember my post about the potager garden?  Well, we've got our version of it now:

Unfortunately, we have to keep a fence up because of deer.  Things are moving right along though... we've had several cucs, a jalapeno (that is no more due to a dog incident), a couple of cherry tomatoes, and lots more on the way.

Potager Garden

I've mentioned this before, but our backyard leaves a lot to be desired.  When we first started working on it we took out several diseased trees.  Then I came up with a bizarre landscape plan to incorporate a pea gravel path & sitting area.  We added a couple of adirondack chairs & all of the sudden we had our very own redneck "beach".  The final blow was thrown by our 19 month old (dog) & his regular regular play-dates.  The pups traipsing about have wreaked havoc on our once lawn.

Last week Trent did a wonderful job laying sod.  It's absolutely beautiful grass, but it happens to only cover a fourth of the yard & is currently ropped off.  Think mini-soccer field in the middle of a dirt plateau.  My brother, who has become quite the gardener, offered up a few suggestions that might help the space feel more cohesive.  After a little research my wheels are turning....

A  potager is a French term for an ornamental vegetable or kitchen garden. Often flowers (edible and non-edible) and herbs are planted with the vegetables to enhance the garden's beauty. The goal is to make the function of providing food aesthetically pleasing.

Ours will be no more than a 5'x5' space, but will hopefully help tie in some of our 

backyard oddities (or perhaps make it even more add)

I don't know what I did before google images.... they help me dream a little dream regularly...