Sometimes It's Too Easy Being Green...

This week I completed a short, but sweet project for our front yard. 

When we moved in almost 5 years ago, our entire yard was shaded! We've since removed an overgrown fruit tree in the front, and 3 LARGE pines in the backyard, but our front yard is still primarily shade. This leaves me with not a whole lot of options for perennials that flower with color, although I think I'm figuring out this whole landscaping process now! ...at least for our yard...

 

Three years ago, I fell in love with these black urns from Target, and drove all over to buy three for our front porches. They looked very stately with our black shutters. 

After years of sitting outside in the frigid temperatures though, the paint starting peeling, and so did it's classiness! I knew I wanted to add in some color, other than green, black and white, to our front yard, and this was the perfect spot to incorporate an accent. 

 Instead of buying a new quart, I just mixed up some paint I already had - a little blue from the boys' bathroom (before I painted over it), and some exterior white. I'm not sure what durability this will give the paint, but I wasn't really going for that.

 I couple of coats later, and I think they look great! I really like the red and blue combo. I even got a compliment from the neighbor across the street, and now he wants me to pick a new paint color for his front door, ha! 

 

 A couple of days later I went to the greenhouse and bought and planted my annuals, like I swore I wouldn't do until June!  Sure enough, that night and the next, we had frost...I called my sister, and she gave me the "I told you so" lecture, like any good big sister! ;) But, a tarp and a trash bag kept them warm just fine. 

I planted Torenia, a shade loving "spiller" that flowers purple and yellow, a few bright pink Impatients as my "filler", and some pink and green Coleus as my "thriller".

 I'll update in a few weeks when they're lush and tall!

 I also painted a couple of glazed pots on our other front porch, ya know, the door no one uses but door-to-door sales people! I still have to dress it up a bit, though.

I'm thinking this stone bird bath is next. It came with the house, so I'm not attached to it, and it gets a little lost. We'll see!