Monday Snoop – A Garden to Love

Thanks for all the encouraging words on my last day of work on Friday (Erin, your comment in particular ensured that there were no embarrassing tears as I left the building for the last time, I actually felt quite excited for all the new possibilities)! So with pesky work no longer taking up my day, Australia plans are in full force for our departure on Saturday (eeeek). I have spent an obscene amount of time ogling at apartments and houses I can’t afford on realestate.com.au, and more practically, I have been looking at the shoe boxes we can just about afford. Like any city, it seems gardens are quite the luxury in Sydney so it is likely we will have to make do with a balcony or courtyard, which I am surprisingly ok with (given my appalling gardening skills… I killed a cactus the other day! A cactus)! But I can’t help the pang of sadness I feel for leaving our patch of grass [and dead plants] behind. Maybe one day I will have the time, skills and patience to create a little Eden like this Nantucket seaside garden I found featured in Veranda…

Images via Veranda

Hit the deck!

I blogged about my love of porches here a few weeks ago and the great outdoors have been on my mind ever since. I spent a lot of the weekend with my nose pressed up against the window watching the rain beat down wondering if spring would ever come (all this scene was missing was someone playing the harmonica and a howling dog). It was not all unproductive wallowing though as I did a lot of thinking and boy do I have a lot of plans for my little garden – budget and energy levels permitting of course. My first priority is to inject some colour into the garden and get my little deck looking a little less sad and a lot more inviting. Top of my shopping list is an outdoor carpet, oversized fairy lights and brightly coloured patio cushions. Here’s my inspiration…

Perfect porches…

I woke up this morning to find the tree outside my bedroom window completely covered in blossoms! I am taking this as a firm sign that spring is on it’s way and that it is safe for me to start thinking about packing the winter jumpers away, dusting off the garden furniture and maybe, just maybe, reducing the amount of layers I put on in the morning. I think I am most looking forward to spending time outside reading in the sun or enjoying a barbeque. Our little deck area is a long way from ready for spring so I have been looking for inspiration to get it into shape. In a dream world, my perfect house consists of a wide wrap-around porch complete with gliders, potted herbs and a killer view. Want to see what I mean?

Click on the image to go to its source.

Garden Wars…

This past weekend I declared war on my garden. I may or may not have mentioned how much I hate gardening but fortunately, I dislike the way my garden currently looks even more! So I recruited some muscle (and when I say ‘recruited’ I mean ordered and bossed around) and we dug, raked, cursed, planted, watered, ached and sweated for 2 days until we could barely move. The depressing thing is that it still needs quite a lot of work but it’s getting there! Maybe one day, it might closely resemble something like this… 

IMAGE CREDITS : 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9; 3 & 4; 7