DEBBIE-DABBLE BLOG

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!!!!!!

Sunday, July 1, 2018

July 4th Front Porch and Flower Update, 2018

Welcome!!

Today, I will be sharing how I decorated our Front Porch for the 4th of July and will also be giving an update on how my flowers in my pots in the front of our house are growing......

But first, I want to Thank Karren, over at Oh My Heartsie Girl, for featuring my post, Patriotic Tree #1, from last week's Friday Feature Linky Party!!

Thanks so much , Karren!!!

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

I gave you a sneak peak of how I decorate our front porch for the Summer Patriotic Holidays in another post awhile back when I shared a few photos of the porch decked out for Memorial Day.......

I feel that Memorial Day is more of a solemn Holiday remembering those who gave their lives protecting our Freedom...

July 4th is The Celebration of that Freedom and I think in this current Political Climate, we REALLY need to Celebrate FREEDOM FOR ALL!!!!!

We are in the middle of the worst and longest heat wave that we have seen in about 20 years.....

I am no Lover of heat so I am stuck in the house with the shades pulled down and the air conditioning blaring.......

I took these photos when there was still shade on the porch and then I crept out to get a few more photos in the Sun......

I also thought this would be a perfect way to share how all my flowers are growing......

This is the area that separates our Front Porch from my neighbor's........

Remember I live in a townhouse......

A flag and a firecracker stake dressed up this urn......

The marigolds are doing well and the begonias should be catching up soon.......

This is what it looked like when first planted.....

We have had a lot of rain this Spring and not a lot of Sun......

We got 3 inches of rain the other day from 3 different downpours in just 24 hours!!!!

More begonias in this pot and another flag....

Here is the Before photo...

A Patriotic bow dresses up the post......

My "New to Me" red milk can with an Eagle on it fits in perfectly with my Patriotic decorations!!

The front door.......

On the side of the door, hangs a small metal Patriotic Star......

I made this wreath several years ago........

I added a bit more flowers to it this year to make it fuller.......

As I have mentioned many times before, I like to hang decorations on the front of our house and I can do so because of the weeping mortar.......

Many have often commented that they never heard of weeping mortar......

Our townhouse was built 40 years ago and this was a "thing" back then

I always say it was the "Lazy" way to lay brick by not scraping off the mortar used to attach the bricks to the wall....

They just left it the way they put it on without leveling the mortar with the brick and called it "Weeping Mortar"!!!

I bought these Patriotic metal signs at Dollar Tree this year......

I bought the "Welcome Friends" sign in Gabes this year......

I bought this metal wreath in Kohl's several years ago.....

I made this basket a few years back......

A wooden Patriotic wreath hangs above the table......

2 small flags were tucked into this arrangement on the table........

This is the corner of the porch by the flower bed under the Living Room window.............

The marigolds in these 2 pots are filling out....

Before.....

And this begonia......

Before.....

Patriotic Buntings were added to the railing.......

I also bought these Patriotic Star stakes in Dollar Tree......

I added them along with more flags to the pots in front of the railing.....

Again, you can see that the marigolds are thriving out front......

This is the Before photo.....

And now......

This is the other urn on this side of the porch......

Before....

The begonias in the long planters on each side of the flower bed are also doing well......

These are really starting to fill in as you can see from the before photo!!!

The flower bed under the Living Room window......

I have 2 small pots planted with marigolds in the flower bed......

This is the Before photo of those small flower pots......

These are the 2 urns on the wall on the edge of the flower bed......

The before photo......

I thought the New Guinea Impatiens would have filled out a bit more......

I will give them another week or so and then I might consider adding a few marigolds to these urns.....

I have planted some seeds in pots out back that are starting to grow.....

The front flower bed on top of our slope.......

Yellow marigolds in this small pot under my faux mailbox....

The marigolds seem to be doing the best this Season........

More flags......

A New Guinea Impatien.....

Before......

You can see that it did increase in size a bit......

More marigolds......

Before......

I recently used an Amazon gift card that I received for Mother's Day from my son to buy this Address Sign.......

It comes with 4 different magnetic pictures for each Season......

You can also hang it on a wall so you may see it hanging on the front porch in a future post!!!

So you can see, we are ready to celebrate the 4th of July!!!

I am off on the 3rd and will be having a Cook In on the 4th for our family before I have to go to work that night......

I will be leaving out all of my Patriotic Decorations both inside and outside of our house until the week of the 9th since the July 4th Holiday falls mid week and many will still be celebrating the Holiday on the following weekend......

I also want to share a Flower Bed that Joe and I created by our Court's Mailboxes......

Our Court, as it is called, has my row of 10 townhouses on one side and a row of another 8 townhouses across the Court, which is our parking lot, on the other side.......

When you turn into our Court, a large box with all our mailboxes is on the right side......

Joe and I enlarged an existing flower bed by the mailboxes a few years ago and planted perennials from our back yard......

This year, it has finally took off with blooms!!!!

One of our neighbors added some Gladiolas to the Hosta's, Lamb's Ear and Asters, that will bloom in the Fall, that I planted here......

I see we have to do a bit of weeding around the edges after all the rain the we have had!!!

In my next post, I will be sharing my Victorian Doll House all decked out for the Summer. and this will be the last post of my decorations for the Summer Patriotic Holidays.......

So I hope you will be back to visit again soon.......

And 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......