With the baby shower hosting gig just two days away, I had to be honest with myself about something I've been in denial about for quite some time. Our decorative grass plants that once gently graced our front flower bed weren't still in a winter slumber. No, they hadn't decided to morph from a lovely purple and green hue to that of autumnal straw. Sadly, they're dead, and they're not coming back to life.

We had lovingly cared for these plants, beginning our relationship with the utmost devotion, having planted them amid a torrential downpour.

We nurtured them through the long, hot summer months of 2012, ensuring their ideal level of hydration, and somehow managing to keep them safe from the harmful footfall of passing pedestrians and canine rain showers.

But by spring this year, as we alluded in an earlier post, things weren't looking too bright for our feathery friends. 

I attempted to trim them back in hopes they simply needed their dead ends to be pruned so they could flourish.

Now, with the passing of several months and the prime season for plants to make their post-winter debut, this is what we were left with. 

In other words, nada. As much as I didn't want to give up on them, I had no choice. With 20+ largely unknown guests coming to our home on Sunday for the big baby shower, I didn't want the first impression to be a lifeless, sparsely planted garden. 

In an effort to remedy the situation, I made a trip to our local Lowes to browse their garden selection. Admittedly plant care and gardening is well outside our wheelhouse, and it's almost as if Alex and I enter into a state of paralysis when entering a nursery. The choices seem overwhelming, our pulses quicken, and the shelves of flowers start to spin. How the heck, after all, are "Dumb and Dumber" going to make a successful selection? 

After way too much time, and hundreds of inspected plant tags later, I finally settled on three lavender plants as the replacements. 

I liked the silvery hue they would add to the space, and lavender is a personal favorite of Alex's. I may also have thrown away his clinging-to-life lavender plants from the back yard earlier this season, so it was only fair to bring this plant back in some way.

The project was relatively quick and easy. First, I brushed aside the mulch in order to dig up the old grass plants, being sure to dig a slightly larger hole than I needed. 

Then I sprinkled a bit of plant fertilizer in the hole, removed the new plants from their plastic tubs, and after loosening the roots, set them into their new locations.

After lightly tamping down the dirt, gently redistributing the mulch, and giving our new friends a nice healthy watering, we had a much more attractive and living addition to our front bed.

Though this isn't a project rivaling a kitchen or bathroom renovation, it's one of those little things that help to keep our house from looking like "that house" on the block. The jury's still out on how this front area of our home will ultimately transform, as Alex is still holding out hope he can find a reasonably priced fence that would look good for the surrounding area, but I'm quite happy with it and it's modest and open look. I'm very much looking forward to watching the lavender flourish over the summer. There's just something quite relaxing about a lush lavender bush.

Have you been working on any minor of major gardening projects lately? Since I've been up to my eyeballs with the shower planning and prep I was happy to get this little task checked off of my list.