Eighty Degree Spring Fever

Yes, I know it is not spring.  Yes, I know that it is one day after the end of February.  But today in the heart of NC we are celebrating 80 degrees and sunshine.  Granted we haven't really had a "winter" in NC this season - we had only one day of a "snow" dusting this whole season.  We've hit the 60s and 70s a lot but 80 degrees is something to celebrate. 

Since I've got spring fever today I thought I would share what we planted around our mailbox last spring.  We only had grass around our mailbox when we first moved in so I wanted to make a sweet plant bed like every other mailbox in our neighborhood.  This plant bed is still going strong so I will show you what our mailbox is looking like currently in the next post (and a little paint touching up project that is needed!). 

To start off, I took a hoe to the grass area around our mailbox to kill the grass and mix up the dirt.  I used a "grass killer" spray to make sure we didn't have any unwanted weeds popping up. 

Now I have no green thumbs in or on me at all. I can't tell you the names of plants, trees, or flowers.  I can barely tell you the difference between a perennial and an annual.  I just knew that I wanted something purple and something that would last through the summer in our over 100 degree days.  I went to a local nursery and found the sweetest man to help me.  I showed him the picture above of our layout and he helped me pick out some flowers that would look best in the space and those that could withstand the heat.  We even did a mock photo shoot so that I could copy the layout we decided on.

I wish I could tell you the names of what I planted but of course....I didn't write anything down!  I do know that our main focal plant we used was a rosemary bush.  I was told this would survive the summer and winter and I absolutely love using rosemary to cook with.  It is still holding strong and I will show you in our update post how great it is doing!

Here is a picture of how everything looked once it bloomed.  I absolutely LOVED all the plants that the nursery guy chose for us.  They lasted the entire summer and were strong little things!!  You can see the difference between our plants and our neighbor's in the background of the picture.  The heat made their purple plants turn sort of brown.  Our plants were still holding strong in the dead of the summer - thank you nursery guy!!  The pink flowers actually were vines that laid down across the bed instead of growing up.  They were perfect for covering the floor of the bed.  You can see how they lay across over onto the cement.

And I love the pops of purple - they looked so bright and vibrant - perfect for spring and summer (did I mention it is 80 degrees and sunny today?).  It is tough to see the rosemary bush but it is in the below picture in the back right corner.  You'll see how much it has grown in the next post.  The vine growing around out mailbox post was there when we moved in.  It kind of pops up every spring.  I'm not sure I'll keep it this year as it seems a little "bushy" and overgrown.  It depends on what I do with our mailbox painting job......

Check back in to see the "winter?" set up we had for these plants in the update post.  And since I'm in such a happy spring mood I'm including a picture of Bodie and Ben hanging out by one of our fires this winter (we don't need that today!).