I am a Victorian Soul, who lives in a small townhouse that was built in the mid 1970's, not a huge Mega Mansion!! I just recently lost my Hubby Joe, who was a Retired Letter Carrier. I worked night shift as an RN on a Hospital based Rehabilitation( Physical Medicine) Unit for 37 years before I had Knee Replacement Surgery and officially Retired in 2019 after 41 years working in Direct Patient Care ... I am so glad that we retired at 62 years of age and got to spend that time together before he passed....I still do love Retirement!!!!

I DABBLE IN A BIT OF THIS AND THAT!!!!

" IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO BE WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE BEEN"
George Eliot
George Eliot was actually a pen name for a woman named Mary Anne Evans......

BLOGGING FOR FUN AND FRIENDSHIP!!!!!!

Friday, April 14, 2023

Early Spring Front Porch and Yard, 2023



 

 

 


 

 Welcome to Debbie-Dabble Blog!!

 
I am so happy you decided to stop by!!
 
 
I post TWICE  a week !!!
 
 I will be posting on MONDAY and FRIDAY!
 
 
As always, click on each picture if you would like to enlarge it....
 
 
 Today, I will be sharing my Early Spring Front Porch and yard...
 

 In my last post, I shared 2 Easter Tablescapes and my Easter Wrap Up.....


 

 

 

 

 Click HERE if you missed that post!!


I want to Thank Niki, over at Life as a Leo Wife, for featuring my post, Anne Marie's Easter Home Tour, from last week's Crafty Creators Link Party!!!!!


Thanks so much , Niki!!

Anne Marie is thrilled....

Please stop by and link up to this charming party!!


And now for a few Personal Notes...
 
 
Our Grand Pups stayed over night on Monday....

They sleep with me on the sofa and 2 ottomans....

And this is how they stayed after I took them outside, got my coffee and settled in on the sofa to watch the morning news...

Yes, both of them are there....

Faye is under the blanket to the right...

Azumi loves to stretch out!!

While Faye likes to curl up in a ball under the blankets....

They stayed like this until after 9am.....


They had a day of sleep, play and walks before they went back home....



They do like to sleep when they are at Mimi's and G Pop's house!!


A wonderful Sunset from our Front Porch...









 
And from our back yard....
 
 





The weather here in NEPA has been excpetionally warm....

Actually, downright HOT....

Breaking records the last few days....

Temps. in the mid 80's and 90 degrees is expected today....

I took advantage of that and cleaned up the back yard and the Patio along with the Front Porch and the front yard before it got really too ho for me....

In a previous post, I shred that we mulched the front slope and flower beds...

I am glad that we were able to save this PJM rhododendron in my next door neighbor's yard when we landscaped it last year...

I don't think it has ever had so many blooms on it....

Walking up the steps.....

Once again, I am sticking with a red, orange and yellow color theme for the front porch....

This color theme transitions well into Fall....



I set up the Front Porch for Summer with the only thing missing is the annuals planted in all the pots....



I won't be able to plant them until at least after Mother's Day to be safe from the threat of Frost....




 
Faux greenery in the lantern along with the light house I made from pots....
 
 
I did put a candle in the lantern that I can turn on and off by remote from the front door inside the house!!

 

I hung the Welcome sign, that was actually a Valentine's Sign, this year between my townhouse and my neighbor's.....
 


I kept the wreath that I made a few years ago on the front door....
 
 



I decided to use the red side of the outdoor rug this year......


Last year, I used the white side....



This is now the 4th year that I have this rug that I bought at Ocean State Job Lot for a mere $12....


It sure beats having to replace ( it is glued down as it was professionally installed) the black "grass" carpeting that has been there for over 30 years...


 
More faux greenery in the lantern on the table...


A few things hung on the wall of our house using the weeping mortar to hang them....


 I think I need to freshen up the paint on the slate again....


Joe and I were just talking yesterday that the furniture on the porch has held up well because it is exposed to the elements in the Summer....


We do store it down our storage shed that we rent in the Winter....


We bought it at Lowes over 10 years ago....


In the corner.....



I used black and white checked ribbon to make bows to go with the Welcome sign between the houses.....



My faux mailbox, which holds garden tools and gloves, its attached to the railing via brackets for a planter box....



This year, I placed this wrought iron "fence" ( for lack of a better thing to call it) in the corner behind the round table to use more as a decorative back drop....


A fairy, a lantern holds a citronella candle in a mason jar and a holder for my water bottle when I sit out on the porch....



My neighbor, the squirrel feeder who I am no longer speaking to after numerous confrontations with him including one on my own front porch, "kindly" informed me of the regulation in our development that nothing should be placed on the sidewalks in front of our townhouse to obstruct it...

I had informed him that since I lived here much longer than he did, I was well aware and that I had had permission all these years from our late HOA President....

This was an attempt to "pay me back" because I had reported him for feeding the squirrels which were causing property damage for several homeowner's including myself...

I guess he thought that would stop me from planting my flowers, which the squirrels had continuously dug up and threw right out of those pots to bury the peanuts he was feeding them....

WELL......

I added MORE pots for flowers but all on my own property and not on the sidewalk!!!!

You already saw this pot right on the edge of my front porch....


And I bought these 2 new ones at Dollar tree which fit perfectly on my own porch in front of the railing so I will still have marigolds planted here....


I may even buy one more...

LOL!

The flower bed in front of the Living Room window....



I spray painted this long planter black and will plant coleus in it....
 
I moved it here from the back yard!



 You can see the Garden Fairy is on my front porch and not the sidewalk!!
 
So far this year, after mulching this flower bed and straightening the border, I added 5 pieces of a plastic black fencing that my neighbor gave me to the sides and against the wall of the house in the back.....


I like the way it looks and it is similar to the metal fencing in the front of the flower bed.......


I also painted the gutter black because the white stuck out like a sore thumb....


Since I placed the Amish Buggy Wheel here in this flower bed, I decided to keep my chippy Angel here...


And I will be planting these pots with red impatiens and marigolds....


This year, I placed these 2 larger square pots here on the retaining wall between my property and the townhouse next door...


I will be planting coleus on the 2 larger pots and marigolds in the small one...

And this allowed me to put my Fairies on the wall, which I own, and not on the sidewalk like in previous years...


The flower bed on top of the slope....


I raked it up and mulched it last week....


 I placed this pot, which normally was in front of the porch on the sidewalk in the Summer, here and will plant marigolds in it...
 
 
Since I decided to keep the chippy angel in the other flower bed, I moved the glass bird bath that I usually placed there in the Summer out to the back yard....

I also took the glass bowl from a smaller bird bath that I did have out back and placed it on top of this rusty cherub one, which usually sat in front of porch on the sidewalk....


It was pink but the sun faded it to white which is perfect for the front...


I also moved this black urn from the sidewalk here and will fill it with red and maybe white impatiens....


I also put out all my Garden Art.....



The park bench...


I added one more pot that I painted black to match the others on the park bench!


I will plant these with red geraniums and marigolds....


My forsythia is now starting to lose it's blooms and turn green already....


Here it is in full bloom....


 
You can see that I placed the other pot, that sat in front of the porch on the sidewalk other years, at this end of the flower bed....


I will also plant marigolds in this one too!



I placed the solar light that I used to have in the flower bed under the window here over in my neighbor's yard as I doubt they would come on with the Amish Buggy Wheel lit up at night....



If I was still speaking to the Squirrel Feeder, I would be "thanking" him for giving me the idea to put even MORE flower pots out into my flower beds as I think it will look really nice, once the threat of frost has passed by mid May, with all the flowers planted in them!!!

LOL!


 I hope you will stop by to visit again on MONDAY! 
 
 
 Stay safe, healthy and most of all, HAPPY!!

Thanks to those who took the time out of their busy day to spend a little bit of time with me!!

If you do not have a blog, PLEASE  give me some way to reply to your comment, maybe by including your email in your comment.  If I can not find a way to reach you, I will reply on the post where you commented so please check back......


I am linking up to these parties:
 
 
 

 
 Please take some time to visit these terrific hosts and all those joining in on the fun!
 


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9 comments:

  1. JeanieApril 14, 2023 at 10:29 AM

    Your porch is already for spring. In a few weeks perhaps there will be sprouts in those pots! Isn't it nice after winter to see spring on the horizon?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Miss MerryApril 14, 2023 at 10:41 PM

    I can't WAIT to see the flowers in pots out front! I love that you outsmarted him and created an even prettier front of your house! I love all the changes and can't wait until early summer to see your front garden in action! Here in Northern Ohio it was 85 degrees today. There is a chance of snow next Tuesday. Isn't the weather crazy this year???

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 15, 2023 at 8:34 AM

    Aren't busybodies infuriating? Especially when their behavior is just as egregious. I mean, I can kinda see his point about nothing on the sidewalk after I watched an older lady here in my neighborhood take a bad tumble after tripping on a neighbor's huge resin frog with a polka-dot umbrella. BUT: if he's feeding wildlife, he has no room to talk, especially if he's been politely asked to knock it off.
    I maintained a little garden in a public area between all our houses; there had been a white pine planted there that came down in an ice storm 15 or so years ago, and the township just left this bare, weedy patch after removing it. I cleaned it all out, planted bulbs for spring, perennials for the rest of the year, and even bought mulch myself. Well, about 5 years ago, our next-door neighbor started buying 50-lb bags of corn and shopping bags full of day old bread from the bakery outlet, and feeding the deer. Only a small family unit of 3 or so... at first! More and more came, and once they were drawn to the neighborhood by the corn and bread they stayed to devour everything else. Every year this herd of 10-20 ate the garden down to the roots until they eventually killed the perennials and most of the bulbs. They even ate a lot of the daffodils, and those are supposed to be highly unpalatable to wildlife. When I told the neighbor what his feeding was doing (and that it's illegal here in this NJ township), he just shrugged and said that his wife likes watching deer out their windows.
    So I give up. This year after the last of the bulbs bloom, I'm going to dig up the few survivors and give them to my daughter who has a fenced yard. This pocket garden is going to look as it did 15 years ago: bare dirt and weeds, with piles of deer poop.
    The only consolation is that we saw an exterminator at the neighbor's house earlier this year; it seems he has a massive mouse problem from the bags of bread and corn in his basement!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Debbie-Dabble Blog and A Debbie-Dabble ChristmasApril 25, 2023 at 12:38 PM

      No obstruction on the sidewalks has been in our HOA's association by laws since it's inception 48 years ago but I have always had permission to put pots of flowers in front of my porch...3 times he lied right to my face stately that he stopped feeding the squirrels that were destroying my yard and other neighbor's yards. I had to threaten action of our home owner's insurance company on him if our property incurred any damages...BUT I think the new arrangement of pots in my own yard will look even nicer than it did before...Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by!!
      Hugs,
      Deb

      Delete
  4. NanaDianaApril 15, 2023 at 6:55 PM

    Well, you have been a busy, busy girl. It looks great and ready for summer. I put two large Boston ferns out yesterday but now we have snow coming tomorrow and down to freezing so I will have to bring them in. Gotta love WI weather. Also--gotta love those that want to micromanage what you are doing. xo Diana

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dee | GrammysGrid.comApril 17, 2023 at 3:52 AM

    Thanks so much for linking up at the #UnlimitedLinkParty 108. Shared.

    ReplyDelete
  6. StacyApril 20, 2023 at 9:08 PM

    You certainly have an eye for decorating! Your porch is lovely, the kind of cozy place to take a chair and sit awhile! LOVE it!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Carol BentonApril 22, 2023 at 9:59 AM

    Ahhh! Spring!! I like your bright colors and cheerful porch decor. Thank you for sharing this post in the Talent-Sharing Tuesdays Link-Up 61.
    Carol
    www.scribblingboomer.com

    ReplyDelete
  8. Christy GarrettApril 24, 2023 at 12:23 AM

    Your front porch looks great. I need to decorate mine.

    ReplyDelete

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