Keeping my green thumbs crossed?

I spent much of this past week out in my yard salvaging some flower beds. Lots of bugs, weed pulling, digging and sunburning later, I am really proud of my beds. Before you go expecting some major great landscaping, just to clarify, I'd never really consider myself a green thumb. To further reinforce this fact, you should know there are no "Before" pictures. Only "Afters."

But in all fairness, to get the full experience, just imagine pictures of completely weeded-out beds. As in, you may not even realize that it was at one point a flower bed because there are no discernible borders. Only crabgrass.

Farewell dastardly crabgrass.

Feast your eyes.

We got Mandevilla, Bouganvillea, Lily of the Nile, Lantana and something else I dont remember the name of. Many of these lovely flowering plants grow to be quite large and I'm hoping that one day I'll be excited to show off my lush backyard tropical oasis.

That might be a bit much.

These guys are plumbago and I hope that they will grow to be large flowering bushes that eventually cover up those ugly white pipe things that stick out of my front yard.

Something that looks like this:

Hey, a girl can dream right?