Thanks y'all! I'm fortunate to have no neighbors in sight, well, at least not when the trees are leafed out. I gotta let my freak flag fly, LOL! And I must admit, being kind of an absent minded professor in the garden, it's nice that when I get distracted and leave piles of weeds and garden trimmings laying around, nobody can see them. I've been doing a lot of manicuring and editing this fall, so I'm looking forward to much improved "after" pics in 2015.
Marilyn, it came about because of the garden around the entrance, which is in memory of my friend Jan who lived (and died) in this house. Purples, blues, and mauve were her colors, and she loved fragrant flowers, so those qualities have guided the plantings. I had already decided I wanted to paint the house a quirky color, but the garden told me what color to go with.