Front Landscape: Clean and Tidy

 Yikes!!!

Yes, this is how the front of the house looked when we bought it. When I look at it now, I honestly wonder what we were thinking.

Today I want to show you Phase 1 of our front yard landscaping project. As a Master Gardener, I'm not hiring someone to do the landscaping, but that's like a surgeon saying, "As a surgeon, I'm not going to let anyone else do my liver transplant",  and honestly, this will probably have the same disastrous results. But I am determined! (James would translate this, 'You are bullet-headed!')

I have three things in mind as I approach this project:

1. What are we working with? This is a house in the woods, not a garden district cottage, or a mountain lodge, or a sea-side resort. Landscaping needs to match the surroundings and the style of the house.

2. What is the style of the house? Flat, short, ugly ranch. That's the style of this house. If the walls are short already and I plant shrubs that are even just 4 feet tall, they will reach half way up the walls making the height of the house appear shorter that it already is. The landscaping needs to be low, low, low. Think ground cover!!!  Besides, we are surrounded by every hardwood imaginable; too much landscaping will detract from the natural setting.

3. How much work do I want to devote to this area of the yard each week? month? year?  None is the answer to that question; none! I want to spend my time in the vegetable garden and the flower borders that surround it. I want this front landscaping to tend to itself, but look neat all the time.

Now with those three objectives in mind, Phase 1 involves cleaning out existing beds and getting everything neat and tidy.

Shrub by the front door has to go.

Asian jasmine(right) must be tamed and weeds (left) must be pulled. 

Added two black urns with ferns. They are far enough out in the bed that they don't obscure the wall. Because you see the wall, the height of the house isn't really affected. The fern can be replaced in winter with maybe a winterberry.

There were existing gardenias located in the far corners of the front bed. I'll leave those and maybe add a dwarf loropetalum.

So what to do with the long 5' x 40' bed in between??? When in doubt, Pinterest will help you figure it out!!

I love this checkerboard pattern! I think it will turn the long flower bed into an extension of the sidewalk; a quasi-terrace. I will fill each empty square with a very low-growing ground cover. I could use only one ground cover or  create a quilt pattern of several different ground covers!

And hiding under the ground cover, daffodils!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Phase 1: Clean and Tidy

Phase 2: Coming Soon!!

Love ya'll,

Shelli

Nothing encourages creativity like the chance to fall flat on one's face.

~James D. Finley

I admit to having an imagination feverish enough to melt good judgment.

~Dean R. Koontz, Seize the Night

Trust that little voice in your head that says "Wouldn't it be interesting if..."
And then do it.
~Duane Michals