I always wonder how people come up with the names of their blogs. Some are pretty obvious, but others, not so much! So I decided to explain the name of mine.
This is my rose cottage. When we moved here about three years ago, the house had been empty for a while and needed cosmetic work. There were some seriously funky colors inside, which we painted even before moving in! The yard was grown up, and the flower beds were nothing but a couple of extremely overgrown holly bushes, which we promptly chainsawed down so we could get to the front door! We also had a lot of old, big, yucky yellow pine trees, which are infamous for falling on houses in our Georgia summer thunderstorms and winter ice storms. So in our first year here, we mainly focused on fixing inside problems (the previous owners weren't as handy as they thought they were) and had those big front yard pine trees cut down. But the next spring, we started working on our flower beds (on a pretty tight budget)! Then last year, we continued working on the front flower beds, and finally cut down those backyard pines. We do everything ourselves (except those front yard pines!); I dream it up and my dear husband does the really hard work... but I do help!
I love cottage style homes and gardens, especially English cottages. Our home isn't actually cottage-style at all, but I'm working on making it more cottage-y inside and out! I search magazine pictures for ideas, and the first cosmetic thing we did to the outside of the house was add our moss green cottage-style shutters (which Ken made and I painted). And I've been teaching myself about flower gardening; my scheme is to buy what I like and then find a place for it, and dig it up and move it if it doesn't work there. That's what the true old cottage gardens did. I have herbs mixed in with flowers, blueberry bushes next to the roses, and at times we've had tomatoes and peppers planted right among the pretty perenials. And the roses... I have always loved roses, so right now I have five different kinds planted, and I have plans for more! I've got years of more planning and planting to fill in my empty spots in my front flower beds, and to get started on flower beds in the back yard (but we're waiting on doing that until we get a new fence). The back yard will be a challenge because of our crazy dog!
Last summer, our neighborhhood decided to start having an annual "Curb Appeal" and had someone from outside the neighborhood, an "impartial judge", to choose based on landscaping, color scheme and maintenance of the house, and things like that. And we won 3rd place! We were quite thrilled about that, considering we do it all ourselves, and considering how recently we began working on it!
Someday, when time allows, I would love to get certified as a Master Gardener, but that involves a lot of training, and a good bit of volunteer time after the training. So for now, I read a lot of books and magazines on gardening. I want to learn more organic ways of gardening, too, like for insect control and so forth. If you know of any great websites or other resources for that, please tell me!
This is my rose cottage. When we moved here about three years ago, the house had been empty for a while and needed cosmetic work. There were some seriously funky colors inside, which we painted even before moving in! The yard was grown up, and the flower beds were nothing but a couple of extremely overgrown holly bushes, which we promptly chainsawed down so we could get to the front door! We also had a lot of old, big, yucky yellow pine trees, which are infamous for falling on houses in our Georgia summer thunderstorms and winter ice storms. So in our first year here, we mainly focused on fixing inside problems (the previous owners weren't as handy as they thought they were) and had those big front yard pine trees cut down. But the next spring, we started working on our flower beds (on a pretty tight budget)! Then last year, we continued working on the front flower beds, and finally cut down those backyard pines. We do everything ourselves (except those front yard pines!); I dream it up and my dear husband does the really hard work... but I do help!I love cottage style homes and gardens, especially English cottages. Our home isn't actually cottage-style at all, but I'm working on making it more cottage-y inside and out! I search magazine pictures for ideas, and the first cosmetic thing we did to the outside of the house was add our moss green cottage-style shutters (which Ken made and I painted). And I've been teaching myself about flower gardening; my scheme is to buy what I like and then find a place for it, and dig it up and move it if it doesn't work there. That's what the true old cottage gardens did. I have herbs mixed in with flowers, blueberry bushes next to the roses, and at times we've had tomatoes and peppers planted right among the pretty perenials. And the roses... I have always loved roses, so right now I have five different kinds planted, and I have plans for more! I've got years of more planning and planting to fill in my empty spots in my front flower beds, and to get started on flower beds in the back yard (but we're waiting on doing that until we get a new fence). The back yard will be a challenge because of our crazy dog!
Last summer, our neighborhhood decided to start having an annual "Curb Appeal" and had someone from outside the neighborhood, an "impartial judge", to choose based on landscaping, color scheme and maintenance of the house, and things like that. And we won 3rd place! We were quite thrilled about that, considering we do it all ourselves, and considering how recently we began working on it!
Someday, when time allows, I would love to get certified as a Master Gardener, but that involves a lot of training, and a good bit of volunteer time after the training. So for now, I read a lot of books and magazines on gardening. I want to learn more organic ways of gardening, too, like for insect control and so forth. If you know of any great websites or other resources for that, please tell me!
