Dragonflies and Thistles: Garden and porch update

I hope everyone's weekend was spectacular.

Here in Colorado the weather has been glorious, simply beautiful. We always have amazing sunsets. I am always watching the sky here. You can really tell the difference on where the sun sets in the summer vs. the winter. It is a dramatic change. But the sunsets, ah the sunsets! In the fall they are orange, in the winter white and in the spring and summer a bit more blue and white.
These are looking from my backyard, north west.

In the winter the sun sets in the south west a difference you can really track.

But now onto my porch and garden... this past weekend the weather was, as always, very cooperative. Sunny mid 80's low humidity. I went to one of our local Target's and found all of their summer porch items up to 60% off!!! I found a blue and white rug for under $15.00!!! So I swapped out the old brown rugs - I put 2 together, for the new one and it looks GREAT!
Before:

After:

SOOOO much better! I just hope the dog doesn't get his muddy paws all over it too soon.

I then took a deep breath and went to Walmart.
Now, while I like the prices and the people watching I get very frustrated with Walmart. There are never enough cashiers, never.
They had plants 1/2 off so I got 2 small boxwoods for $2.50 each, a purple clematis for $3.00, a pink salvia, also for $3.00 and some indoor plants including that plant in the little blue planter above which was $1.00, yep one whole dollar! The planter cost more than the plant.
I also ran across some outdoor lighting.
Now I've always liked the idea of outdoor lighting but always thought the solar LED's would just not be bright enough to even see but I took a chance and bought some Westinghouse LED solar lights. They came in a pack of 7 for $9.00 and some change. If you buy them individually they are $1.99 each. I bought 2 packs of 7.

They were very easy to activate, un-screw the top, pull the tab, screw the top back on and put the spiked bottom on... done. I put 4 in my front garden that I weeded and raked and worked hard on. It wasn't even dark yet and these shone brightly.