Project Outdoors, The Beginning

I started to pull a few weeds to get started on a few garden projects the other day and Bear grabbed my cell phone and took about 100 pictures of himself.

This year has been about pushing myself outside of my comfort zone and as a nerdy, computer-cradled-in-my-lap person, sometimes outside my comfort zone is right outside my door.

That’s right- my yard. When I was contacted about  a series focusing on the outdoors I felt intimidated at first. Those of you who know me personally and have been to my house know that the people before us had the greenest thumbs around and we’ve slowly destroyed their garden of eden over the last few years. Last year my “gardening” success was to pick stubborn weeds out of a flower bed from 1980 and make a wood-chip pathway to my driveway since we were already killing the grass by walking there.

It’s time to reclaim my yard. As an adult. I want my house to have some curb appeal and not to be “that house” between two exceptionally well groomed homes, but have felt at a loss as to how to transform my yard and go a step beyond paying someone to just spray the weeds. Both of my boys loved being outside and on nice days I just send them out for the day, bringing meals to them to eat on our porch. This year my goal is to go a little further outside- to spend quality, family time doing necessary, home improvement projects. I’ll admit, I have a probably overly optimistic vision in my head of doing gardening projects with them;  me helping them pat dirt around a pretty, delicate flower with them beaming up at me with pride… carefully handling worms dug up from the ground in their chubby hands…

Yeah… the reality, especially if you know my 2 sweet but crazy boys, is that there will be spilled dirt on the pathway, something broken and kids trying to crawl into the plastic landscaping bags. I’ll share it all- the beauty, the bad and the “did he really just pee in the flower pot?” stories.  

I’m excited, heart pounding a little faster in some apprehension but I’m comforted that I’m not being left alone to fail. Partnering with the Home Depot means that I will have some HELP and advice on how NOT to use the wrong dirt (dirt matters!), plant the shade flowers in the sun or kill my plants with too much fertilizer among other things. (All of which, I have done…)

The opportunity for improvement in my FRONT yard- I need to create a flower bed (top left picture) and then re-take the overgrown flower bed in front of my front door. I think a few potted plants would make a huge difference as well. 

This is my back yard- Really anything would be helpful at this point! We have really let the boys take over this space but we are having a large party in mid-May and I need this area to look like something from a Pottery Barn catalog. I know- I really have my work cut out for me but the good news is that ANYTHING is an improvement!

The cool thing is that this information is not just for me working with them- they are there to help you as well either in person or on the Home Depot Website– their Garden Club which is World’s Largest Gardening Community. The tools and resources are all there whatever your project is and if you aren’t a gardening whiz yourselves, it’s just convenient to have everything at one place. When you sign up for the Gardening Club you get over $300 in email savings as well as:

• *$5 your next garden purchase of $50 when you sign up
• *8 new projects to help you #DigIn to spring
• *Monthly to-do lists (based on your region of the country)
• *Expert advice
• *How-to videos

So, this is the introduction. Please stay tuned this spring as I share  stories of outdoor beauty and getting my hands dirty in the soil (the technical word for dirt, as told to me by my landscape architect brother-in-law). If you have advice or are doing any spring outdoor projects yourself, please comment and share a link! The weather is getting nice and warm and I love inspiration from real people.

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It’s home improvement time, and The Home Depot has everything you need for spring. No matter what projects you want to tackle, The Home Depot has you covered.
Spring is the perfect time for all your outdoor home renovations. Shop The Home Depot for terrific values on new patio furniture, landscape supplies such as fertilizer and potting soil and outdoor grills. Keep your lawn and garden looking great, too, with the huge selection of lawn mowers, edgers and trimmers, and garden tools.

Visit The Home Depot Garden Club for product ideas from kick-starting your Spring with seed starter kits to building a window birdfeeder. 

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of The Home Depot.