What happened?

Wilson and I spent all day in that tiny flowerbed today. He tilled up the ground and we tried the Miracle Grow bed mix - just because that's what we could find on that first trip to Lowes. Realized that it had enough organic matter that we didn't need to add the peat moss. (OK, so Wilson realized that - after all, he's the farmer.) Once it was perfectly leveled - again, Wilson's idea - we got to planting!

Here's what we planted, with notes to myself included:

Texas Bluebonnets - for my Texas relatives and in-laws. State Flower of Texas. Full Sun. Grows to 8-12" tall.

Mexican Heather - to remember our trip to Costa Maya and Cozumel, Mexico. Sun to partial shade. Grows 12-24" in height.

Dusty Miller - because Wilson likes interesting foliage and I like something other than green. Full sun, 6-10" tall.

Sugar Daddy Petunias - for Wilson "Sugar Daddy," as the boys call him. Full Sun, 12-15" high.

Flower Power - just because they were pretty. Full Sun, 12-14" tall.

And an azalea with white flowers - whose card I lost. Geez.

So we get all of these pretty flowers in the ground and I realize that we didn't buy enough. There were gaps! What happened?

And we made a decision. We expanded our little "manageable" flowerbed across the front of the entire house! Wilson loves sunflowers. He started growing them for duck hunting, something I don't understand. Anyway, he loved the way they look. So we are going to grow the 4-4.5' ones in front of the front porch and the 12-16' ones in front of the front wall (with the 4' ones in front of them to break up their height). We're going to plant little annuals, like the ones in the round bed, in front of them.

We had known that we would be planting the sunflowers, so we bought them yesterday. We planted the seeds in those cool little peat pods. Have you heard of these suckers? They're so cool. Plus our local high school ag department is using them so they can't be too bad. (We bought a few bell pepper, tomato, jalapeno, and cherry tomato plants from the ag dept this week, too. Babying them inside for now.)

Went back to Lowes for more soil and more plants. Bought a TON of plants to make up for buying too few last time. Also bought cypress mulch, enough for all of the beds.