Before and After

While I was growing up I would sneak my Mom's magazines to read. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't that she didn't want me reading them - I didn't want to openly acknowledge I was reading them.I was too cool for Ladies Home Journal or Woman's Day - way way too cool.And Better Homes and Gardens? Puhleeze.

There were lots of features I skipped. Recipes, dramatic stories about emergency surgeries, craft instructions, clothing patterns, none of those held my attention at that point in my life. I was already drawn to photos of gardens and planters and floral arrangements however, and I absolutely could not resist any story that had a "Before" and "After" photograph featured.

I don't know what it was about the transformations depicted, it didn't seem to really matter what the intent of the makeover, I was simply fascinated by the ability to so clearly see something or somebody who once looked this way, and who now looked that way.

I suppose that is why, even though my family used to scoff at me for taking photographs without any people in them, I persisted over the years in taking shots of our yard as it evolved. Even without doing anything past watering and waiting, a garden bed gradually changes as the years go by.

On the other hand, we have done anything but simply wait and water in our front yard. We have slowly but surely been transforming what was once mostly a monoculture of St. Augustine grass, a typical suburban front lawn, into a large bedding area filled with various plantings, most of them natives.

So I cannot resist. A before and after comparison shot from me to you. I don't think you can quite absorb the full impact of the front beds from this distance shot but you do get the general idea and the impact of what used to be now becoming something so very different is not entirely lost. Since we have a fair amount of foot traffic in our neighborhood, I have worked hard to assure that from varying angles as you pass by, there will be surprises revealed to the careful observer. Once I figure out how to give you a patchwork of the angles, feel assured I will share them here. But for now?

Ladies and gents, [drum roll please]- our front lawn BEFORE:

and AFTER:

And now for a word from our sponsor.  For those of you who only read here and not there, I will repeat my proud announcement - we have been adopted by a stray kitten!We are calling her (we are pretty sure she is a she) Bijou, and holding a good thought for whatever it is she is calling us. Because she has had a pretty rocky start with regards to kitten/human interactions, we are spending extra time just hanging out, being cool, trying to sell her on the idea that those other very bad people were the exception and not the rule.

That means my sporadic posting here will likely be even more so for a bit. Hopefully absence will make us all that much fonder. Until then!