Stars and Stripes...Happy 4th of July!

        Despite the extreme mess here at Le Beau Paon Victorien, what with our landscaping project underway and taking seemingly forever, I still had to put up the new patriotic bunting that we purchased awhile ago.
       We were very excited to buy this "vintage-style" bunting and put it up and we were not going to be deterred by the mess of our yard. I saw this bunting in the catalog for Plow & Hearth and had to have it!

A few dollar store flags added to my pots of annuals give my front porch more patriotic flair!

Please excuse the dust! There is stone dust all over everything. I try to rinse it off every few days, but the minute they start cutting stone, it's back!

I had to move some of my plants around on the porch and take down the hanging fuschia, so I created this little sitting area in the corner.

If you missed my last post about the HUGE landscaping project we are doing, and all the pictures, you can click HERE.

Inside the house, I have put up two 4th of July banners that I bought at JoAnn's back in May. They actually had these out and on sale, for Memorial Day, even though one of them says "4th" on it.

We've had the worst weather this year for flowers and gardens. We had an early spring, with unusually warm temps, but not a lot of rain. We finally got some rain in late April and early May, but the temperatures were cooler than normal during those months, and we had some pretty cold nights. Then came the drought. We have not had any rain in over six weeks. Everything is curling up and dying and everyone's grass is dead.

 It hasn't helped that we have had horribly hot and humid weather for weeks also, with temperatures close to 100 degrees and high humidity that makes it feel like 110 degrees.

My flowers are hanging on because I have been diligently watering them, but many of them are not doing very well because of the heat and the dry weather.

My coneflower garden is still looking pretty good.

My pots of annuals are flourishing, due to massive fertilizing and watering pretty much every day:

Luckily, the hydrangeas, ferns and hosta are shaded well from the blazing sun.

The front yard is a complete disaster right now, and most of my planting beds are tore up. In the back yard, by my back porch, my orange butterfly weed and red bee balm were doing wonderfully:

But this is what it looks like now:

Yeah. Yikes!!! It's pretty bad.

On the plus side, the project is coming along and hopefully soon we will have things put back together and looking nice again!

The walkways are completed now:

And the wall is progressing nicely:

I hope you have a safe and happy holiday!

Thanks for stopping by!

I'll be joining My Romantic Home for Show & Tell Friday

and

French Country Cottage for Feathered Nest Friday!