Garden Arch ‘Decoration’

Following on from my Garden Arch post, where I left you pondering on whether I should stain the arch or leave it to weather naturally….

I was seriously considering staining it. I really was.

But I haven’t. It blends in with the grey of the tree trunks, the gravel driveway, the stone garden edging. And it will get greyer with time. I thought it might be nice to make it stand out, but I decided it would stand out too much.

And once the plants really take off it will be more beautiful!

I had planted Mandevilla when I put in the old arch, which will have gorgeous pink flowers. When it grows.

But it is Wisteria season here, and Wisteria really is the most stunning blossom! We have some growing in the back garden, but if I had the space I would love to have more. I am very jealous of my aunt and uncle’s Wisteria Walk…

…but I can’t recreate that 😦 Then I thought, “Why not!” I have already dug some up and replanted it to grow over our deck, and it’s doing very nicely. It’s been there a few years now.

So I dug up some more from the back garden, and it’s been planted next to the arch. Once both the Mandevilla and Wisteria grow it will be glorious! Wisteria has a relatively short flowering period, so the Mandevilla will take over the decorating job then. And we know we have a very strong new arch, so there should be no issue with holding both vines up 🙂

I know you can’t really see the plants ready to grow beautifully over the arch, but they are there!

Those who know me will know of my obsession with garden lights. (And Christmas lights. They will be a whole other post, don’t worry about that!) I had solar fairy lights over the old metal arch, but they corroded and stopped working. We cleaned the rust out, but still no luck getting them to work.

But that’s ok! When the arch was completed, the next job for our Resident Handyman was a solution for garden lighting – power! More to come on that story, but for now I am able to use powered fairy lights instead of solar. I have no problem using solar lights – we have plenty of those too, but sometimes electric is the way to go. So when we went to Bunnings to get some other things I went looking for lights for the arch. And here they are!

You can see on the bottom right hand side of the arch there is a new power point. Nice!

So now it is all finished, and it’s up to the plants to grow. They have been fertilised and regularly watered, so there is no excuse!

Here’s the (almost) before and after, what do you think?

Linking up with:

The Pin Junkie, Love Bakes Good Cakes – Freedom Fridays, Table and Hearth – Think and Make Thursday, Domesblissity – Thriving on Thursdays, A Daily Cup of Mrs Olsen – Share Your Cup Thursday, Katherine’s Corner – Thursday Favourite Things, Sincerely, Paula – No Rules Weekend Blog Party, A Tray of Bliss – Five Star Frou Frou, Chic on a Shoestring – Flaunt it Friday, The Life of Jennifer Dawn – A Little Bird Told Me, Natasha in Oz – Sundays Down Under, Celebrate and Decorate – Celebrate it Sunday, Girl Creative, Thoughts From Alice – Sundays at Home, The Foley Fam – Sunday Funday, The Pinterested Parent, Julie’s Lifestyle – Cooking and Crafting with J & J, Tip Junkie – Tip me Tuesday, Thrifty Décor Chic – November Before and After