Neil Sperry would be proud.

It's funny how when you own a house, you start to notice things like lawns, landscaping, trees, flowers, etc.  I never noticed this stuff IN MY LIFE and now all of a sudden, I want to be gardener of the year.  It's crazy, I even bought a Neil Sperry book (he is THE MAN in Texas gardening) and I've actually read it.  I read a gardening book and I'm excited about it.

So, I wanted to show some of my efforts.  We got really lucky with the landscaping that is already in place at our house.  The previous owners were super duper gardeners who loved tropical plants...mexican palms, hibiscus plants, things like that.  This place was beautiful when we bought it.  I loved it.  One of the trees in our backyard looks like this right now.

 

Beautiful.  I love this tree.  Pretty pink flowers in the Spring. 

Then we had 2 winters with temperatures below freezing.  Remember THIS ? You can actually see our little Mexican Palm tree covered in snow.  Needless to say, pretty tropical plants were dead, dead, dead.

So, I tore out all of the dead tropical plants (roots and all) and bought some less exotic plants.  Here is what I'm working with now.  I like it.