Sprucing up for Spring! {My Ten Favorites}
April 26, 2023
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My ten favorite practical and pretty items for spring!
I love spring almost as much as I love the fall season. SO close. I really enjoy the process of prepping our outside spaces and gardens for the upcoming year.
Nearly every day I walk around and marvel at how quickly our flowers and plants grow at this time of year. I swear sometimes I could watch them grow!
These items have been so nice to have around as the weather has warmed up and I've been working outside again.
Some are cute, some are practical, and I highly recommend ALL of them! :)
Many of these would make wonderful Mother's Day gifts for the Mom in your life who enjoys the outdoors. 💗
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1. Affordable outdoor rug
First up, this SUPER affordable striped rug for outside! I first purchased this Novogratz blue and white outdoor rug a couple years ago.
You may have seen it under the dining table on our patio:
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| See last year's patio tour here. |
The rug we've had on our covered patio was starting to fall apart, so I took a look into this one again and couldn't believe the price!
A 6.5 by 9.5 foot size is SO affordable -- and is $50 less than when I bought the first one years ago. It's great quality, easy to clean and the design will work beautifully just about anywhere.
2. Inexpensive (and washable!) outdoor ottomans
Here's that rug close up on our covered area, with the new outdoor ottomans I grabbed recently:
Looks like a regular pouf right? Well...it's actually just filled with air. ;) This is a blow-up ottoman and is perfect for outside!
We had fabric ones before that were supposed to hold up to the elements, but they literally fell apart. They were so hard to keep clean because I couldn't take the covers off to wash them.
This affordable option has a washable cover that's easy to remove, and the insert can be blown up. It even comes with a foot air pump to fill it.
So far I love them -- I'll be sure to keep you updated on how well these hold up. The only precaution we have to take is to make sure they don't blow away in storms or high winds. 😂
*These inflatable ottomans are the same, but come in 39 different design options!
3. Beautiful wicker citronella candle
This is one of the prettiest citronella candles I've seen! It comes in three wick and one wick versions. I just love the rattan around the glass:
It's hard to find attractive outdoor candles, right?
I like that I can repurpose the wicker shell later, or just make my own candle refill for inside. So pretty!
*These candles are on sale right now!
4. Solar fairy lights for the garden
I added some pretty metal arches to our backyard garden last year (I still need to show you) and have been looking for delicate outdoor fairy lights to hang on them.
These pretty lights are perfect! They are tiny but the strand is SUPER long and the lights are plentiful -- each strand is 72 feet and there are 200 lights each:
The best part is there's no need to plug them in. The little solar panel disappears in the dark mulch and I was pleasantly surprised at how bright the lights are.
I just love them! I will show you how this spot turned out soon!
5. Metal hooks for fences
I shared my favorite bird feeders recently -- it's become fun pastime for the whole family (including the cats of course).
When I brought the garden stuff back out this spring, I remembered I had donated all of our shepherd's hooks we hung the feeders from. They would always fall over in the wind and I was tired of messing with them.
Also, I wanted to get the feeders a bit further away from our outside living spaces so we didn't have to deal with the bird...ahem...clean up quite so often. :)
Enter these awesome, sturdy hooks that fit perfectly on our metal fence:
These are actually categorized as "pool maintenance" for pool nets, towels, etc. But they're useful in so many ways!
I've hung both this cutie feeder and one of our covered ones (that is wider) and both hang perfectly.
They still give us a great view and are easy to access. I LOVE them and plan to get a couple more (they come two to a pack).
6. Grow your own container and window box flowers
I shared my love of our AeroGarden last year and was excited when I saw that "wave" petunias were available along with their veggie and herb options.
Cascading petunias are my go-to for my outdoor annuals because they fill in so well. I feel like you get more bang for your buck with these flowers.
Planting our window boxes and containers can get expensive, so I figured I'd see if using these would save some money. I got the nine count cascading petunia seed pods and they grew beautifully!:
And almost too fast! The benefit of this indoor garden system is they grow much faster than from the traditional seed starts.
I'm excited to see how these turn out and I plan to update here with photos in a few weeks. I got a couple boxes and will start the next batch when these are planted.
7. Keep a record of your flowers, plants and trees
Gardening is one of my absolute favorite hobbies, and I've always wanted a better way to keep track of our expanding landscape over the years.
Sometimes a plant just doesn't thrive like I think it will, or I find that the upkeep is more than I bargained for. Most of the time I love a flower or plant so much that I end up repeating it around our yard.
This little gardener's logbook is exactly what I've been looking for all this time!:
Not only is it PRETTY, but it has plenty of space to keep track of the important plant details:
I add details like spacing, max size and other things I want to remember in the notes section.
I wish I had kept a record of the plants and trees we planted at the old house -- there are so many I'd like to replant here!
8. Helpful pruning tarp
I hate the mess pruning makes! It's no fun to clean up branches and blooms out of the mulch when I'm cutting back plants or deadheading flowers.
I knew there had to be some kind of product I could lay down around the base of the plants, and was so thrilled when I found this pruning tarp:
It has been SO helpful! Our rose bushes have become crazy overgrown, and this tarp has been awesome as I've cut each one back this spring.
The side that opens up has Velcro, so you can close it up easily. There are also loops on each corner so you can secure it with stakes if needed.
It's more than six feet across so would be great for pruning small trees as well.
9. A cute spring garden flag
There's something about a pretty little garden flag. They're such a sweet detail and I love switching them out for holidays and seasons.
I thought this sturdy Welcome garden flag was so cute -- perfect for spring but will carry through the summer as well:
The quality is GREAT. It's made of burlap so nice and thick -- the thin, silky flags always fade so quickly. The design is on both sides so it would look great from any direction.
If you love these sweet garden flags like I do, you'll have to check out one of my favorite finds I discovered years ago! It's the last item on this spring list...
10. Garden flag stoppers and clips
The first couple of flags I placed on our stake years ago would disappear. Sometimes I'd find them across the yard, and couldn't believe they would whip right off of that curved holder!
After I lost a couple for good, I went searching for a solution. And of course some smart person had come up with one! :)
These garden flag stoppers slide right on and keep the flag from sliding off -- SO great!:
All of the sets of these I've found also come with little clips that you attach to the flag stake. You can clip the sides of the garden flags so they don't go whipping around. (You can see one at the bottom corner of our flag if you look closely above.)
These hooks not only keep them from flipping and getting stuck, they prevent a lot of wear and tear. Since I've started using these little doodads we haven't lost one flag. :)
So helpful and easy to use!
These are my new and old spring outdoor favorites -- do you use any of these items? I highly recommend them all. HAPPY SPRING!!
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Great ideas for Spring. I have the blow up ottoman and love it. We have had it a couple of years and it has really held up good. I usually put it underneath a coffee table when a storm approaches as it is very lightweight. Fairy lights are a must have. I love them in Areca Palm trees on my deck. So cute at night. I have been looking for citronella candles and these are perfect. Love the rattan. Thanks for a great post.
ReplyDeleteHow cute are the ottomans! Are they sturdy enough to sit on ? Also is it easy to transplant the flowers into the ground or pot from the aero garden? Thank you! I think we need a part 2 ☺️- love these ideas
ReplyDeleteOn your outdoor ottoman, can you put a brick in it, to keep it from blowing away. Looks like the cover is loose enough.
ReplyDeleteI don't see a link for the gardner's book. thx
ReplyDeleteSo sorry! I added it!
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