Befores and afters

This is the same area about 2 months apart. Before we put in the beds, it was all grass (well, mostly weeds). I have transplanted things from the front yard or started from seed. I love the new curves, and the pine straw to me just screams "Florida". Being on a strict budget, I am filling in as I can.
 I'm making good use of the "free" seeds I got from the America the Beautiful project. I get a little thrill looking through the box where I've sorted the seeds according to planting season. Fall will soon be here, so I can prepare my beds now to get the best performance from the new additions. Seeds are such amazing creatures.

 This is a volunteer lantana that I transplanted from the front yard. Unfortunately, it wasn't lookin' too good for a while. I checked on it today, and wouldn't you know it? 
It's comin' back big time! Gotta love lantana. 
Freezes, drought, heat, it takes it all and keeps on growin'!

Here's a golden beauty, one of the few seedlings I actually bought at the store to plant.

 

Here's the pathway we put in that leads to the backyard. 

We used a recycled landscape fabric we bought at the store, thinking it would make the maintenance of the path pretty easy. 

Oh, how wrong we were! The cardboard lasagne method works so much better! Needless to say, this weekend I'll be pulling all the mulch up, putting down cardboard, covering it back up with mulch and adding the cement stones I got from a nice lady on Craig's list a couple of weeks ago. It's nice to have the walkway though. 

Gives the garden added movement and interest.

So far, I'm pretty happy with what we've done this year. 
I do my best to work around the fact that we have almost no shade in our yard. And the privacy issue is another matter. 
Ah well, no room in the budget for a fence! We make do with what God gives us and we are thankful. 
No doubt!