The Back Porch: Back From The Dead

We had an unusually long and cold winter here in the Dallas area. I know, boo hoo, poor me, you all really feel sorry for me. 🙂 The problem is, I’ve been here for over a decade now (holy crap I’m so old!) and I’ve gotten wimpy. So, when I should have been outside babying my potted plants, I was inside cranking up the heat. Can I just say that one of the best things about being a grown up is having control of the thermostat? Both of my parents have an interesting idea of what constitutes a comfortable temperature in the depths of winter. Oh my gosh! I just remembered about the Tundra! I have to write about the Tundra on here sometime.

Back to my porch: I basically killed several plants this winter that I had had for several years. Three agapanthus, a blue pin cushion flower, and I thought an asparagus fern. There was much death and destruction. Here are a couple photos of the porch from early May:

Death, Destruction and Mr. Bingley

Another Angle On Death & Destruction

I thought the asparagus fern was dead, but no! It refused to be killed! It’s the one in the back, but I think I did a good jub of cutting away all the dead stuff, so you can’t tell.

This represents many hours of my 3 day weekend.

I’ve had that fern for at least five years. It used to live in the atrium at my old house. I don’t think I’ve put pictures on here of that before.

Fern in it's former home.

The other side of the atrium.

Enough about the fern! Here are some more “after” pictures of my back porch:

the conversation area

Dining Area

I need a potting bench for this empty area.

Six of my eight hanging baskets.

View from the garden fence.

View from the west end of the porch.

I know it’s not perfect, but it’s SO much better. I’m feeling relieved to have all those projects done. And I won’t be embarrassed to have people over. Now I just need to keep everything alive!