Decorating & Gardening

The past couple of days have been productive! I have hung up the curtains in the living room:

My mom made the ones on the end and we bought two ivory sheer panels to fill in the middle. I absolutely love them! They are fun and match the colors of the rug in the living room (and couches). We also put up sheer ivory panels on the back door and front door sidelight. We discovered that both areas are metal and used magnetic curtain rods. They are really easy to use, but when a puppy gets excited and tries to look out the front door by jumping up they become a problem. I've been having to re-hang the sidelight panel about twice a day since hanging it. At least it is easy to do.

I have also gotten some gardening done! I planted the side garden: 

The back row is full of Coleus plants -- a fun variety. They grow well in shade and this garden is almost entirely shade. I used six "Jade Green" Coleus plants, plus one each of: sunset coleus, Red Ruffles Coleus, Gay's Delight Coleus, and Stained Glass Coleus. I love variety! I also planted in front of them two rows of seeds. The middle row has Dahlia and Impatiens seeds and the front row has Marigold seeds. In the past I have had a lot of success growing flowers from seeds, but I have no idea how successful I'll be here. There are a ton of birds around here and they might eat all of my seeds. Since I put them in both the side and front gardens I'll have to wait a couple weeks to see if anything is growing properly. Otherwise I might have to buy a bunch of flowers. 

This is the front garden so far: 

I have mulch in the front but not the side yet. I underestimated the total amount of mulch I would need. I'll be picking some more up this evening to finish off the side garden. Then I'll be soaking everything one more time. In the front garden I have the flowers from before plus I added a couple caladium bulbs, Lantana plants (these attracted butterflies and hummingbirds back in Nebraska when we planted them) in red and yellow, red and pink geraniums, orange and pink gerbera daisies, and the following seeds based on height: moss roses (my favorite), poppies, lupines, bachelor buttons, sweet pea, african daisy, and foxglove. I know that seems like a ton of different things but I gave them each a little area. I'm hoping for some success and will thin them out if they are too successful or plant small flowers that are pre-grown if my success is limited. This morning I also sprayed the front garden with some Bug B Gone - hopefully it works. Unfortunately, it looks like a couple of my plants that I planted in February might not survive the bugs from this past month. 

I also got around to completely ripping out the mess of the little garden near my front patio. It looks much better now:

I also have mulched this one but forgot to take the picture afterwards. I have also purchased a second trellis. I am planning on growing some cherry tomatoes and baby bell peppers. I haven't done much vegetable gardening in the past so I'm starting small.

One question for anybody who has experience with this. We have some massively huge (and scary) hornets/wasps of a variety I have never seen before. I guess they are a southern species. They seem to build their nests from the orange clay that's in the soil here. They like to locate them around our windows. Is there a preferred method for getting rid of these nests and preventing more from forming?