Flowers in our yard

I love to paint flowers but, to be honest, I cannot grow them.  My mother had a green thumb.  I'm sorry to say that I do not.  In AZ we had cactus in our yard and they required no care.  That was perfect for me.  In MI we built a flower box and put in annuals the first spring there and they grew and basically were no work so in the fall we planted tulips and daffodils and this spring they bloomed.  So far so good.  In early May we planted annuals again.  By the end of May we had put the house on the market and when it sold we took a trip to NC to buy a this house.  When we got back I realized some bunnies had eaten most of the annuals we had planted.   Since we were moving I decided not to replant.  The new owners could pick what they wanted to fill the flower box. 

Now we are in NC with a yard full of all kind of bushes and plants and flowers that were planted by the previous owner.  Our homeowners association mows the grass but I guess it is up to us to care for the plants.  For the first month we didn't worry about the yard but recently I realized that things were getting out of control.  I didn't want to take Roger away from the inside projects so I decided to do something about the plants myself.  Armed with a pair of clippers and gloves I set forth into the yard.  There was a huge shaggy looking plant right outside of the front door that attacked me every time I got in the car.  I started there and cut it back to almost nothing.  It smelled wonderful as I was cutting and I found a tag saying it was purple sage.  It has started to regrow so I don't think I killed it.  I proceeded cut back anything that looked shaggy and pulled out anything that looked like a weed.  I left some of the bigger shrub type of plants alone.  Roger can trim them back in the fall.  I have identified some of the things and have no idea of what others are.  I will have to do some Internet research to find out what we have and how to care for them  We hope to put a small front patio in next year so some of the plants will be removed.  I took photos of some of what we have.  Maybe someone can tell me what they are. 

When we first moved in I saw something growing at the base of the little bird feeder and thought it was a weed but I was too busy doing inside work so let it grow.  I'm glad I did.  This is what it turned out to be.

I assume a sunflower seed fell out of the bird feeder and took root.  I took some closeup photos.  This first closeup shows a visitor to the sunflower.

 
Here is another closeup taken after the bee flew away. 

There are three big flowering bushes that I thought looked like hollyhocks but found out the are Rose of Sharon.  Our daughter who passed away was Sharon so they have special meaning to me.  They seem to be different varieties.  One has purplish flowers which look a little different than the other two that have pink flowers.

There are two huge flowering bushes that attract butterflies.  They have a fuchsia shaggy looking flower.

We have a 6 ft. tree that has purple blooms.  I've seen others like it in the neighborhood but don't know what it is.  The Crape Myrtle trees have pink flowers so this is something else.

There are small patches of other types of flowers scattered through out the yard.

Then there are all the green things growing everywhere.  Small trees, bushes, pampas grass, even something that looks like holly.

This is only a fraction of what is growing in our yard.  I did not take pictures of everything.  There is pine straw covering the ground around the plants. 

You can probably tell that my knowledge of plants and gardening is very limited.  I have no idea of what most of these growing things are and no idea of how to take care of them.  Hopefully we can figure it all out.  Arizona plants were so easy to care for, which reminds me, we have a small prickly pear cactus growing in the yard.  It is kind of sickly looking but I know they can flourish here because a neighbor up the street has a huge beautiful one growing in their yard. 

So much for the yard, as for the inside of the house, things are moving along and it won't be long before I post photos of what we have done so far. 

I am ready to start work on my art studio.  I have a fair amount of space in the loft area upstairs.  I'm just not sure how I will set things up.  When we lived in Ohio in our big house I worked in the basement which was unfinished.  I had an old workbench and picnic table that were my work area.  I was doing only craft items at that time.  I spent most of my time teaching decorative painting at various adult-ed classes in a couple of schools and craft stores.  When we sold the house and moved to a small condo I used a walk-in closet for my painting area.  I had a full time job managing a photo studio and my painting time was limited.  In 1996 we retired and moved to AZ and I had a small area in the laundry room.  My father lived with us and when he passed away I took over his workshop for my studio.  That is when I started canvas painting and my art career took off and I was doing exhibitions and selling almost everything I painted.  My shop was small but efficient. I had a sink with a counter and walls to hang frames.  I used one of the guest bedrooms as my gallery of finished paintings. Then we moved to MI and had a big finished basement.  I loved my studio there. I had a long counter with a large sink and plenty of wall space to hang art and empty frames. Now I must start over and try to figure out how to convert a carpeted loft into an art studio.  I will have to use the guest bathroom as my water source.  There is little wall space because there are so many windows.  I do have a large closet and plenty of room to set up my grid walls to hang finished paintings.  It will be a challenge but I'll get it done.

Since this is an art blog I thought I should post a couple of works of art I did in the past.  Here are some that feature sunflowers.

A walk around the neighborhood

It is four weeks ago today that we moved into our townhouse in NC.  We have accomplished quite a bit in that time.  All the boxes have been opened and most are unpacked.  Some walls have been painted but there is lot more painting to be done both on the main level and upstairs. 

I mentioned in my last post that our son Brian came for a week shortly after we moved in to help with some projects.  He plans to come again next week to continue to help us.  This past weekend our son Mark and his wife Leslie came to visit for 5 days and also helped with some projects.  They lived in this area for three years so were able to introduce us to some new restaurants.  I'll do a post sometime on all the great places to eat that are close to us.

Our list of things to do seems to be never ending but that is okay because we enjoy the remodeling process.  We have new appliances on order and they will come next week.  I am still moving furniture and decorative items from here to there trying to decide where they look best.

 It will be awhile before I set up my art studio but at least I have did an inventory of all the boxes that are in the area I will be using.  I have unpacked most of them and are sorting things out and getting ideas of how I will arrange my work area. 

I am not ready to post pictures of our latest projects because we are still working on many of them.  In the mean time I thought I would give you a tour of our neighborhood.  We try to take a walk every morning and evening. Here are some photos I took while we were walking this morning.

I took this photo of the sun coming up over the trees as we were heading back towards our house at the end of our walk today.  The glare blocks out all the houses but you can see that we live on a tree lined street.

This is the tree that is between our townhouse and the one next to us.  We are the corner unit with a street in the front and side of our lot.  We still can't get our car in the garage because of all the boxes full of Roger's tools, etc.  Roger is a very organized person and if you have seen the photos of his workshop in past posts you will see what he hopes to have here.  He plans to use half of the garage as his work area.  Like my art studio, it will be sometime in the future that he will get it done.

Our side of the street is town houses and the other side of the street are single family homes.  These are a couple that are across from us.

The neighborhood pool is on the corner of the other end of our block.  We have not used it yet.  We have been too busy with our projects.  One of these days we will get there. 

This last photo is of some of the trees that line the streets of our neighborhood.  It is such a beautiful, peaceful place.  We enjoy our walks.  In MI we also took walks and it was very pretty but we did not have much choice of where to walk.  Every walk was the same route.  What we like here is that we can vary where we walk. Every time we go out we head in a different direction.

I'll do another post in a couple of weeks and by that time I should have photos of some of the work we have done.  Hopefully I can get my art studio set up soon and start painting again.  For the time being my artistic side is being an interior decorator!