Tag: garden

Our Cozy Christmas Home 2023

Posted on by Lauren Lane

The tree is decorated, my winter containers are done and looking festive, and the house is full of twinkly lights, cozy candles, and holiday cheer. Grab your warm coffee and come cozy up in our holiday home…

Did I stand in the rain to take this picture? I sure did.

Our warm living room…

My favorite piece from Nathan’s Grandma’s village set is this house with a greenhouse attached…

Our Santa picture is getting an update this year still…

And the outdoor containers this year…

And the boys got their own little trees in their rooms this year for their own ornaments…

Our kitchen table doesn’t have much room for extra things, but you have to have a little bit of Christmas on your kitchen table…

And our main family Christmas tree…

Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

September 2023 Garden Tour

Posted on by Lauren Lane

It’s my last garden tour of 2023. I’ve already started pulling some of these plants, particularly the ones that were on the downward trajectory. Others, I’ll probably leave for another week or two. I like having the garden tidied up around the beginning of October. Having to be outside working in the garden when it’s chilly is not my favorite, so I really try to wrap it up before our weather really turns.

My favorite month for this pot:

September:

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July 2023 Garden Update

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Last Friday, a massive storm blew through Kansas City. I looked outside and thought we were in the middle of a hurricane. Everything looked like it was literally being tipped sideways and flying down the street. What resulted was massive tree damage and no power for several days. Thankfully, we had very little damage, aside from some large branches falling down. But the winds did not help my poor plants. They still are standing sideways today.

But plants are resilient, and they’ll bounce back. Before the storm blew through, I took my July garden update pictures.

May:

July:

May:

July:

May:

July:

May:

July:

May:

July:

June:

July:

May west side garden:

July:

June:

July:

Everybody has fared pretty well so far! Now I’m off to do some staking of my flowers that tipped over during the storm. 🙂

June 2023 Garden Tour

Posted on by Lauren Lane

The June garden is my favorite, I think. Everything looks the very best. The bugs haven’t started to really come out quite yet, and things don’t look terribly overgrown. It’s just simply my favorite time of year in the garden.

I use lots of containers on our patio to bring color up close to our house. Our west side garden is my full sun, cottage garden. Over the years, it’s become a combination of annuals and perennials. Our garden path in the backyard is primarily a sun garden as well and a combination of annuals and perennials. I’m dreaming up how I want to landscape the east side of our house, that will be primarily a shade garden, now that all of the bushes I hated over there have been removed and we finished installing an egress window in the basement. Lots of dreaming and sketching, and of course finding inspiration from other fellow gardeners. 🙂

May:

June:

May:

June:

May:

June:

May:

June:

May:

June:

I forgot May pictures of the garden path and the rest of the backyard….but June is looking pretty…

May west side garden:

June:

I forgot a May picture of my front container, too.

I’m still working on finishing up mulching, and bracing for the onslaught of “what’s wrong with this plant?” That comes in July and August every year. But for now, I’m enjoying all of the color!

How to *Almost* Squirrel-Proof Your Pumpkins

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I thought this was the year. The year that I finally figured it out. You’ve probably been hearing me complain for years about our squirrels eating my pumpkins, digging up my plants, eating my flowers. The squirrels in Prairie Village, Kansas are vicious. They take no prisoners.

And this year…I thought I figured it out. Figured out how to squirrel proof my pumpkins from becoming soon-to-be hibernating squirrels food.

Every year, I put out my sweet little pumpkins, and everything looks cute and fall-ish for a week at best. And then, they find the pumpkins. And they chew through them like they aren’t being fed off-cast seeds from my bird feeder every dang day (which they are. They are very well fed squirrels.).

I had a small success. Maybe with my outrageous squirrels you’d call is more than just small success…but this year, my pumpkins were out for well over a month before they met their fate.

Here’s what I did….

  • Clear semi-gloss spray paint
  • Red pepper

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Outdoors Fall Tour 2022

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Oh this is has been a week. It’s been potty training week for Baby J, and I am exhausted. But were here. We’ve made it to Friday! And being home all week with a 2 year old gave me enough time to finish my fall outside refresh!

I love refreshing my outdoors for the fall. While some gardens I take out completely and clean up for the upcoming season, I try to do a few fall containers to hold on to some of the beautiful fall color. It’s refreshing to see fall colors outside in my containers to match the pretty leaves that start to fall this time of year.

I went around the outside of our house and snapped pictures of anything I spruced up for the fall season. If I salvaged some of my summer container for the fall, I’m including a picture of what it looked like for the summer, as well. Often times, I find I don’t need to pull everything when many things still look really good into the fall, and can instead just add to them.

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September Final Garden Update

Posted on by Lauren Lane

I’ve so enjoyed sharing how the garden has grown over this past season. September, though, is generally the end of our summer gardening season. Invariably, October brings at least a few cold snaps, so I pull all of my annuals out in September and tidy up the garden for the winter. I’ll keep a few late season annuals until the first freeze, just because they still look so beautiful. And, of course, will add some mums and replace a few container plants to “autum-ize” a few of my containers. But this is the last true garden update for the summer!

I’m going to include pictures of how things looked just planted in June as a reference point of June to September. September is certainly not most plants best months, but it is truly magnificent how much growth happens in just a few months!

June:

September:

The coleus has just grown beyond my wildest imagination in this front container.

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Friday Favorites {08.26.22}

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Happy Friday, everyone! It’s a big day and weekend for us! We’re officially setting off on our first flying family vacation with just the four of us. I’ve got so many bags to pack, and lists to check off before we head out the door. But I gathered up a few of my favorites from this week for you!

Please ignore my greasy hair that needed to be washed in all of these pictures….but I just couldn’t wait to share with you the Nani swimsuits I bought to try out for our beach trip! I personally discovered this brand a year ago, and bought one suit from them. It’s my absolute favorite suit. And this is the only picture I have of it…my sister is really going to appreciate being in the background of this picture yawning…

The one above is on major sale right now. Like half the cost of when I bought it. Top is linked here, and bottom here. I wear an XS in both top and bottom.

So I bought a bunch of colors and a few tops, and tried them out.

Saw my sister wearing this top originally, and after seeing it all summer, I had to have it. And these bottoms in color Zuri are both cute and comfortable.

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July Garden Update

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Watching the garden grow in the summer brings me endless joy. I love seeing how things play well together, making mental notes to myself on the color combinations used. Dare I say that this may be my favorite year YET. I went out at the beginning of July and took some pictures of the gardens to share!

I’m going to share the June picture followed by the July picture, because I always thinks it’s so amazing to see how things fill in during such a short period of time.

June:

July:


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June 2022 Garden Tour

Posted on by Lauren Lane

Happy June! I hope you all had a good long weekend!

Gardening is one of my favorite things to do in the summer. I spend so much time poking around the gardens outside, seeing what’s growing, admiring how things grow together and interplay. Every summer, I try to give you a little peak at how my gardens are growing this year. So here’s my first installment of the Lane family garden 2022. There’s still work to do, but you don’t fully appreciate the work and growth without the ’before’ pictures.

The west side garden. This bed gets full sun. I love zinnias as fillers of this garden in between the peonies and other annuals. I’ve added a few more perennials this year. The lime green stonecrop in the front of the beds is an annual, and I planted white supertunias in between each one this year. The clematis on the trellis is in its second or third year, and looks super full and gorgeous.

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