Sweetness*

Two weekends ago I went to lush, gorgeous Vancouver, WA to spend time with some of my favorite women, my sisters. Unfortunately, on every trip I forget something, and for this one, it was my camera, so you'll have to check out their blogs to see what I mean by lush and gorgeous. But I must have felt inspired by the amazing scenery, because we decided to plant in our back yard this weekend. It's not quite as idyllic as my sister's in-law's yard, but I couldn't be happier with it. I just smile every time I look out my kitchen window.

The plant I'm most excited about is this lilac tree. Apparently they graft a dwarf lilac onto the trunk of something else to create the tree. I'm in love. It smells divine. Lilac's always make me think of my mom and my grandpa's house. Plus it's the perfect small scale for our small backyard. It's practically perfect in every way. To balance things out, we got a swirly topiary for the other side of the yard.

We also have two hummingbird feeders, at which we get frequent visitors. They keep things entertaining.

The only flowers we planted went in this big pot with several different vines. The vines are dichondra (silver) and two varieties of sweet potato vine called "margarita" (chartreuse) and "blackie" (dark purple). The flowers are zinnia (yellow), dahlia (purple), and poppy (orange).

The poppy hadn't bloomed when we bought it, but it turned out to be this neon orange. And the inside looks like this.

We put in this fountain last year. It's a nice way to drown out the noise from our very-close neighbors. The only perennials we had back there were the hosta's. We also planted a few varieties of coleus to add some pops color.

*Sweetness is both a reference to the lovely smelling lilac, and the song I was listening to when I started writing the post.