My Garden Project Is Finished! – Pictures Included!

To say I love flowers would be a massive understatement! I’ve been working on a “garden project” that I started last summer and I’m finally, finally, finally finished. Many of my friends had requested to see pictures once the project was completed and even though not near everything is picture ready I was able to grab a good number of pictures!

Read the list below and you’ll know why I’m so relieved and excited to move into this next season!

I seriously want to thank God for His grace to cross the finish line of completing this project. If it wasn’t for His grace (which I had to receive afresh like a billion times since last summer) there is no way I would be done! There were so, so, so many times I had to cast down the lie, “Sandra, you are never going to complete this project.” I had to choose to believe the truth and rest in and receive God’s grace each time that happened.

Here’s what I did:

– Removed all of our old mulch by shoveling it out 1 shovel full at a time and put down new red rubber mulch, which has a 12 year color guarantee, in it’s place!!

– Probably planted 200 bulbs

-The ground here in Missouri is very rocky so it would sometimes take me an hour to dig one hole. I admit I yelled more than a couple times while trying to dig those holes. For some reason knocking up against rock in 100 degree weather was frustrating at times. 🤪 I can’t imagine why!

– Transplanted a good number of perennials

– Had to stop in the middle of this project so many times I lost count to look up and read about or watch a video about a certain bulb I was planting to make sure I planted it correctly. How deep of a hole should I dig? How far away should I plant it from the next bulb? Does it need to be in full shade, full sun, partial shade or partial sun? Which side of the bulb should I face up and which side goes down?

– Planted lots of annuals in pots that I had saved over the years and set them various places in my gardens to add color (I loved this addition to my gardens this year)

– Worked with Richard from KRB Appeal (who helped us with certain parts of the project) on the organizational side of all the projects he handled. Lots and lots of communication to keep everything organized. Richard (contact information below) planted 6 Autumn Cherry Trees, 2 Kwanzan Cherry Trees, 8 Crepe Myrtle Trees and 23 Weigela Shrubs and then he replanted some that didn’t do well and had to be replaced. He also did other creative projects for us such as reinforcing our rubber edging around our gardens with rebar. Oh man, that edging isn’t moving now and we will no longer have to be concerned about needing to reposition the edging after the change from hot to cold temperatures each winter.

Can I also say that FastGrowingTrees.com (where we ordered our trees and shrubs) has been very good about replacing any trees/shrubs that needed to be replaced since we bought the 1 year warranty for each item we ordered. The warranty is so worth it! Communicating with Fast Growing Trees took hours and hours and hours of my time but they were very kind and helpful and God blessed us through it all because we ended up with some extra trees and shrubs out of the deal! For instance, they accidentally sent us the wrong color shrub in our first order but they let us keep the wrong ones instead of requiring us to return them as well as sending us the correct ones; therefore, Steve and I got to use those shrubs to redo 2 more areas that we had been wanting to redo and we got to bless my sister with some as well!! Thank You, God!

Whenever I did get some extra time to work on my garden project I had to first make sure I was keeping up with what we already had planted so I

– Deadheaded any flowers that needed it about once a week

– Made sure all of our plants/flowers were getting enough water because this has been the absolute hottest summer I have ever experienced in Missouri. We had heat warnings and extreme heat warnings throughout the summer. Sometimes I would have to stop after 20 minutes, come inside and take a break, eat an electrolyte popsicle and go back out, but I guarantee you I probably don’t have one toxin left in my body because I sweated them all out!

– I got to do lots and lots of creative things in my gardens!!! It was hard work and it was fun!!

I want to encourage you that with God’s grace you can make it through anything. The Bible says, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. – Philippians 4:13 (NASB) This is one of the truths I had to remind myself of more than once and you can too!

Now, for the pictures!

Three people/companies I would like to give credit to for their products and or help with this project are:

The hanging baskets as well as some of the other flower arrangements came from:

Andy’s Produce in House Springs, Missouri

4645 Gravois Road

House Springs, MO 63051

The trees and shrubs that I mentioned in the post but are not shown in the pics because they are very new came from:

Fast Growing Trees and I ordered all of these online. They were delivered right to my front door!

Richard Ruiz From KRB Appeal helped us with many projects over the spring and summer months and we wouldn’t be able to call our garden project finished right now without his help!