How Does Your Garden Grow?

I have been working really hard the past couple months to make the back yard a better place.  I started with the exhausting work of digging up sod to create planter boxes along two of our main backyard walls.  Then the kids helped me scatter wildflower seeds on top of the newly laid soil.

Adel didn't understand my excitement when the seeds began to grow.  I reminded him of the hours  I had spent digging and told him that those hours would be wasted if I couldn't get anything to grow in the planter boxes.  He got it then.

The first glimpse of a sunflower. 

A week later, the seedlings sprout...

...and grow! 

Another sunflower growing. The proof is right on top...a sunflower seed. 

One of the planter boxes is lined with my potted herbs and wildflower seedlings are growing up between them. 

The other is just the wildflowers and some small shrub trees I moved from the front yard.  I have plans for our two benches to go in that corner on either side of the paving stone, but I don't want to block the sun yet, and stunt the growth of the wildflowers. No flowers yet.  So hoping they will come through for me!

After two weekends of weeding, mulching, and pruning, our rose garden is transformed to an enchanted cottage garden by the little freebie playhouse we gained last year. 

I think  I'm more enamored by this scene than the kids!

And Adel helped me plant our first lemon tree.

The tree I picked has lots of little lemons growing on it.

This one is the biggest so far.  So excited for the hopes of our first small harvest.

I used a wedding arch that I bought for $5 from a friend's garage sale to prop up our misplaced wisteria, hoping that someday it will actually bloom, before it pulls the fence down. 

A friendly visitor.

Abby helped me plant some already-grown flowers in a small planter box by the new barbeque spot.

Sadly, those flowers didn't make it...tiny pots and full-sun dried out the roots too quickly.

But we found some dessert flowers that are now thriving there.

The BBQ area.  I added 2 stones to put the BBQ on so that it wouldn't take up our precious tiny patio space.  I also dug the tiny planter box for the desert flowers and another shrub tree from the front yard.  In the background, you can see the new hose reel on top of another stone.  My plan was to dig that whole wall and create another big planter box, but I ran out of steam.  Maybe next year.

Our purple trees that we planted last year are just starting to bloom.

One month after planting, I still have not put the benches in place because of the wildflowers.  They are still growing well.  The tallest, broadest ones are the sunflowers.  But still no blooms!  Please bloom, wildflowers!!!

Additional pics will be added here, once I see some blooms!