The Private Gardens

Saturday, while Naomi's sisters were adventuring in Europe, we decided to go on an adventure of our own right here in our Pacific Northwest backyard. Each year as part of the Private Gardens Tour, several home owners throughout the Olympia area are selected to showcase their gardens. These gardens are only available for public viewing once a year so I'm glad we got a chance to see a couple of them. We did not have enough time to visit them all. I carried Joshua and Naomi took these amazing pictures with my Nikon.

The First Garden

This garden really inspired me to get to work in my own yard. The original situation being so similar to ours. The lady who owned this home and garden had a display poster showing what their property looked like eleven years ago when they first purchased it- an older home on a flat, boring 3/4 acre parcel. Now it's a beautiful oasis, with many lovely sections of garden to enjoy.

The front landscape had a quiet woodland type of feel but when you followed the main garden path through an arbor draped with ornamental grapes, one entered the tropics! The back garden is an exciting, eclectic blend of hardy bananas, palms, cannas, and many more large colorful annuals. 

Getting some ideas for my front yard... I have a laurel hedge with a rock wall garden in front but it doesn't compare to this! I could go for this look (minus the purple dinosaur egg ;).

Covered trellises leading to secluded, peaceful areas...

Exotic flowers

I love the vivid orange colored flowers.

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 The Second Garden

We saw giant, six-foot tall thistles!...   

Gorgeous dahlias...

Lovely roses...

a state-of-the-art chicken coop...

a romantic gazebo...

And the highlight of the entire garden- two large ponds containing seventy beautiful Japanese koi fish!

Joshua loves watching the koi fish.

So happy he might burst!

Paint, Paint, & More Paint

Our ongoing project for the past couple months has finally finished up- the house is painted! Also, new roof, new gutters, the addition of shutters on the front windows to really add the quaint country cottage appeal, and shrubberies for the front planter sections.

When we first began the painting project, neither Joe or I realized exactly what we were getting ourselves into. The prep work was intensely time consuming- scraping, sanding, filling, priming, masking, re-scraping, re-priming, re-painting, touch-up- at times it seemed like we'd never finish. It was a lot of hard work but now our masterpiece is complete and our property's curb appeal has increased dramatically. 

I'm almost too embarrassed to post the "before" photos (they're so awful), but they make the "after" photos that much more impressive:

Before...

...After

Before...

...After

Before...

...After

This post about our home improvement projects got me thinking of the meaning of the the seventh commandment from Luther's Small Catechism:


"Thou shalt not steal."

What does this mean?

We should fear and love God that we may not take our neighbor's money or property, nor get them by false ware or dealing, but help him to improve and protect his property and business.