New flower beds

After completing the drainage work, Mike decided to rework the plantings that line the driveway.

I didn't get the chance to take proper "Before" photos... but you can (kind of) see a portion of the flowerbed in front of the picket fence in this photo:

Mike removed the rock border, and dug up the patch of grass:

He then planted some Oak Leaf Hydrangea & Lavendar.

 

On the other side of the gate/walkway, Mike did the same...

Grass gone, plants in its place

Further down along the fence it steps in a little (to give extra room for a car to park and still keep the driveway clear), we decided that lavendar would be perfect here:

You can see the hose on the ground marking where we are planning for the edge of the driveway to fall...

The last step was adding mulch to all these new flower beds.

This one was taken this morning...
leaves are starting to fall!

The driveway guys are working at the house now and said they MIGHT be ready to start paving today!  Yippee!

Little Garden Signs

The picking garden is coming along nicely...
The only thing bothering me was the little signs for the flowers (which were plastic) getting broken & lost... and just looked like litter in the flower bed.

Then I came across this idea at LoveThemMadly...
So, I decided to modify and make some little signs of my own.

Supplies:
-Corks
-Skewers
-Spray Paint

Happily, I had all of these on hand.




I first tried spray painting them over newspaper...



But it was taking too long with them having to be turned, multiple coats, etc.

Assembling and then painting upright worked much better:

(By the way, I cut each of the skewers in half)




I used a sharpie marker to write flower name on it...

They look really cute, match the color of the garage, and I'm hoping they will hold up better than the plastic ones!

The garden is starting to fill in a bit!
The blank row near the front is where the daffodil bulbs are.

Rolling Rock

Or more accurately, Rolling the Rocks.

We've got TONS of them!  So, we decided to use them to create some flower beds.

To start, we moved them over to along the fence.  (Yet another good use of the tractor!)

That's our little Christmas tree from the front porch.
Not sure where we're going to plant it yet!



Here we are, with the stacking in progress:

It's looking a little rough and scraggly now, but it IS the middle of winter. 

This spring or summer I'll post an update once we get some mulch and plantings in...

A New Look in the Front

The front shrubs were growing like crazy. 

Since we live on a corner property, we need to keep the front shrubs trimmed to no larger than 2.5 feet high (so as not to obstruct a driver's view of the cross street).  We could see that they were going to be a lot of mainenance... plus we didn't really like the way they overshadowed & downplayed the pretty stone wall. 

So, Mike decided they had to go, and out came the tractor.  There had to be at least 40 of them!  Some will be replanted along the (soon-to-be) back fence.  Others, like the bunch with the big bee's nest in it, were not so lucky.  We left some of the ivy- because it looks really pretty with the stone wall, but had to thin it out to make room for some new plants.

Once the shrubs & excess ivy were cleared out of the way, Mike had to raise the dirt level to the top of the front wall, so that our new plants would be seen from the street, and not just from our  front porch.  More tractor work!

We spaced out the newly purchase plants:

Dwarf Holly Bushes- so there would always be green, and a touch of red from the berries

Sherwood Dwarf Abelia- an evergreen, with white summer flowers & leaves that turn purple-ish in winter.

Mums- for a splash of fall color

Tulip, Daffodil, and Crocus bulbs- for spring color

And finally, we added mulch.



Before

Along the side of the front yard, where the steps come up from the driveway, we did some more work.  



There were a bunch of little slates at the bottom of the steps that didn't really go.  We removed them & instead made a landing at the bottom of the steps out of a big slab of slate that we found under a bush in the back flowerbed.

The hostas on each side of the steps were getting huge & taking over the entryway.  So we defined a new flowerbed to the right &built a matching rock boarder.  We planted them here for now but will  move them into permanent spots next spring.

The deer are certainly enjoying them as evidenced in the "after" photo...

After

In place of the hostas, I planted daffodil bulbs (my fav) on each side of the bottom slate.  I think will provide a nice pop of color against the gray brick.

It's looking a bit bare,  but should start looking better once the grass seed starts growing where the tractor wore a path. 



And now that the hard-scape is done, it'll fill in & look really natural next season.

The best part about working in the front yard was all the people that stopped to chat as we were working.  In addition to meeting several of our neighbors, a couple of folks thanked Mike for pulling out the shrubs & another asked if we would consider boarding his horse in our barn (hmm... gotta think about that one!)