Front Porch

For several weeks now, I have been meaning to post with an update on our front porch. I keep forgetting to take pictures during the day, though. Tonight I decided to just take pictures in the dark. Better to post something than nothing, right?

Anyway, a few weeks ago, we ordered two rocking chairs and a small table for our front porch. We debated on rocking chairs versus a bench versus a glider. In the end, we thought the rocking chairs would be the most classic. Then we debated on color--black or white. White won. Ed had to put the chairs together (which he did one night during the heat wave--outside), but they turned out great! We love them.

When we moved into the house, we inherited some hanging baskets of pansies which had seen better days by the end of June. I finally took them down in July when my mom visited. I wanted classic Boston ferns, so Mom and I went to a local nursery. They had beautiful ferns--for $40 each. A bit more than I wanted to spend. Mom mentioned that she thought she saw some ferns at our grocery store the day before. So we dropped by the grocery store and sure enough, they had 8-inch Boston ferns for $10 each. Sold! We also bought two wax begonias for the front, so after a bit of rearranging, we ended up putting my ivy planters on either side of the door, and the begonias on the steps.

This is a terrible picture, but you get the idea. I like the ivy planters, but I think I want something taller--maybe topiaries? Anyway, as you can see on the right side of this picture, the plants in front of the porch are overgrown, but unfortunately, since all of the yard maintenance is taken care of by the homeowner's association, we're not allowed to mess with the landscaping. So I can't cut this stuff back. There are camelias to the right of whatever that bush is that are crazy tall and scraggly and they bascially block the view from the front porch. But apparently, July and August are not the months for pruning, so we have to live with it for a while.

Here are some pictures of the porch showing the rocking chairs, ferns, and the crazy camelias.

I can't wait until all of it gets cut back! In the meantime, a little bit of progress goes a long way. Now we're looking at furniture for the back porch.