Look where the sun is finally shining..

Last year when we bought our house, we were just smitten with it. While we thought everything about the house was perfect and move-in ready, we also still had a list of things we wanted to do to make it more "ours". Well, one of the things on our to-do list was to remove the shrubs in the front of the house because they were kind of huge and ugly. In all honesty, I didn't really think this would happen because my gardening skills are a bit questionable.

Exhibit A: This is a bamboo plant from one of my students last year. While this has lived for over a year, it was actually doing much better until I messed with it. When I removed some of the dying pieces, the rest of it turned yellow. You may also notice the dead shrub in our back yard. Go figure.

Exhibit B: Again, this plant looked great until I touched it. I may or may not have waited over a year to repot this plant.

These are the vines that used to have leaves on them. Sadly, the leaves were recently vaccummed from my guest room carpet.

Exhibit C: This is an empty pot. It used to contain a plant. Do you need a better explanation?

The sad thing is that my sweet mama painted and decorated these adorable pots and surprised me with them on my first day of school ever. I wish I could find the pics of the original plants. She has a green thumb and I obviously did not inherit those genes.

One of the only plants that is thriving in my care is the last thing I need in front of my house. You can take a look for yourself.

Yes. That's really what you think it is. We had a big, huge, boy part in front of our house. I would like to know who decided that this was a smart landscaping move. It certainly was not us.

I don't know if a normal eye would catch this from afar, but it was all we could see.

If the neighbors weren't already talking about us, I'm sure they started when Jeff asked the Homeowner's Association if he could remove the bush in front of our house that looked like male genitalia. Lovely.

Get one last look at it, because it's gone now.

I decided that hydrangeas would offer a bit more curb appeal and be a lot more lady like. Hydrangeas are so Cape Cod to me and I just needed them in front of my house. Although, a dandelion patch would have been easier on the eye than "the" bush.

We Jeff started ripping out the shrubs. Love that man!

Had to take a quick break to disperse some of this.

We enjoyed a bit of this after all of the obscenity.

Disclaimer:I may have also been enjoying some Sangria while my sweet boy worked his tail off. I did bring him gatorade, as seen in the purple Nalgene bottle, stage right.

And now, we have these!

Surprise, surprise. They're droopy. They were even worse the first few days. My mother says they're in shock. I think I just suck at keeping things alive. We also put lime in the soil because that's how they get their blue color and Jeff insists that our plants are hurting because they have acid reflux. :) Poor babies.

I will keep tending to these until I kill them until they bloom!

I am also pleased to announce that our curb appeal is now rated G.