A little spot of green

When J and I moved into our tiny half duplex - our first house - there was one special feature that we really liked. I always go for quirky and unusual things, so this was really cool.

Our house has an atrium inside. It's the first thing you see when you walk in the front door. The front is all glass and both sides have large windows that face our dining area on one side and the master bathroom shower on the other (the huge window in the shower is interesting - you can sit at our dining table and look through the atrium and watch someone showering - this doesn't happen often and we make sure no guests are there for sure).

When we moved in the atrium was all rocks, a really ugly fountain and some dead potted plants. It was just sad. I could definitely see the potential for an indoor oasis.

This is the sad before picture:

When I wasn't working I spent the largest part of a week turning the soil (this was a huge pain since it was all clay) and mulching and planting in the atrium. We put an ad on Craigslist for free landscaping rocks, so someone came and dug all of those out earlier, so at least I didn't have to do that part.

It was really hard work and at one point I did think it was going to kill me before I got it done.

I have given the plants a little while to fill in and these are the photos I took earlier today. It's a huge improvement on rocks and dead plants!

The bushes on the trellis are evergreen wisteria (not real wisteria, but they are a lot less invasive and have blooms similar to wisteria but they are dark red violet and smell kinda like grape soda). We wanted evergreens so it would be pretty all year. There are also hydrangeas, foxtail ferns and sedum in there.

The wisterias have really taken off and when all of the plants fill in and mature they will be really great. I still want a tiny bench of some sort to put out there.

This is a closer view of the wisterias:

The atrium is by far my favorite part of the house now. It provides so much light and it's so nice to look out and see healthy green plants in a little protected area just for us, kind of like a secret garden.