I bought this rose last summer and planted it in the front yard. The photo doesn't do it justice, it's so beautiful in person! It also smells delightful, a more fruity fragrance that can be easily smelled when you start to get close to it. Luckily, it's a disease-resistant rose and a prolific bloomer!

This rose I discovered a year ago growing at the Heirloom Roses garden outside of Newberg, Oregon. It's an old heirloom rose called "Leda" and hard to find online. I found it, though, and after being on a waiting list, it got delivered in the spring. 

I kept it in a pot for awhile, but it's final home is the SW corner of our new backyard patio. Leda will become very bush-like in shape and end up being about 3 feet high & wide when all is said and done. 

The scent of these is unbelievable. I think I fell in love with that at the Heirloom gardens, too.

The blooms are just stunning! They start out like the very tips of their edges have been dipped in dark pink, almost deep magenta stain. Once they open, they are a very round and full white rose, with this pink turning almost to a deep crimson purple around the edges. 

Can't wait for each year to go by and this beauty to get more and more established!

When we moved into our house in 2008, the previous owners had filled the backyard with gravel for a low maintenance, adult entertaining space. They did not have children. Once Bean came onto the scene, Eddie and I agreed, we needed grass in the backyard, not gravel, for the kids to play on. Eddie hauled all the gravel to the street, posted it on Craigslist, but not before our neighbor chuckled at Eddie's trips to unload the rock, mentioning he remembered when the previous neighbors tore out the grass to put the gravel in.

Bumpa helped Eddie lay sod in the back, and for a few years, the girls enjoyed green grass.

Then the weeds and moss overtook the grass and we never ventured to the back, unless we had to get to the garden to harvest fruit or vegetables. It was a huge area that couldn't continue going on unused. It was an eyesore, too. Eddie wanted to put grass back in again but I nixed that idea immediately. Instead, I started planning a patio area where we could put the fire pit with low-slung chairs around it, to make a separate entertaining area from where the outdoor dining table was.

Eddie liked my proposition and together we drafted out a design utilizing thick, heavy interlocking stone pavers I'd seen online and carried at Lowes.

Together we pulled weeds and crab grass out of the dirt and pulled up all the netting the sod had been laid over. Eddie pulled up all the black weed barrier and pulled up the larger roots from the nearby trees.

177 pavers, paver sand and polymeric sand got delivered on a Friday morning. Actually, only 33 pavers got delivered initially. You should have heard the Lowes delivery driver when he realized his error in loading up the truck that morning! An hour later, the rest of our pavers were in the driveway awaiting to go into the back yard.

The same weekend the pavers were delivered, I rented two hand trucks from U-Haul. Eddie and I got all the pavers and sand into the backyard, between the two of us, within two hours the next morning (Saturday). Team Camarillo!

You can see how crowded our outdoor dining table was with the fire pit and chairs in their temporary home...

In money well spent category, we hired a gardener to rototill the ground. Eddie began laying out the stones according to the pattern we'd designed on graph paper. The backyard wasn't an exact square, so the patio area, turned to form a diamond shape, had to be finagled to align with each sides center...

Meanwhile, while Eddie worked (in the blazing sun!) I was intent on beautifying the outside dining area. I loved the Bali umbrella's I'd seen in magazines and online but wasn't keen on the expensive price tags. Instead, I made our own Bali-inspired umbrella using old starburst Christmas ornaments and gold mylar tassels picked up for cheap in the party section at Target. 

Et voila!

The finished patio looks fantastic, now, and we all love to spend time in the backyard, now. In fact, we've eaten dinner practically every night outside this summer, something we've never done before. The girls love to sit in the chairs by the fire pit, reading their books or just hanging out with the family.

(Also, since these pictures above and below were taken, we've filled in the corners with dirt and planted perennial shrubs and flowers!)