Front Landscaping

Last Thursday Michael and I were off and had big lofty plans for the front flower bed. When we bought our house the previous owners had planted lots and lots of shrubs and greenery in the front beds. It was crowded in there to say the least and these are huge beds. Also they had a lovely (and expensive, so we've heard) weeping cherry tree planted right smack-dab in front of one of the windows on the house. We lived with the way things were for 3 years and we decided this year was the year to clean most of it out and do what we wanted.


This is the closest picture I could find that shows the BEFORE of the front bed. I took this right after our front window was shattered during renovations....long story....all is well now. :)

Here is after we cleaned out the hedges from the beds.





 The hard-working hubby ready for a busy day of landscaping.
 I guess this is a good spot to mention that we had it all planned out (in our heads) of how this was going to go. We planned to get up early Thursday and head to town to get our supplies. We were planning to put down black plastic weed barrier and do pea gravel in the bed. However, we ended up doing the total opposite after visiting a highly recommended nursery in a neighboring town. The wonderful and knowledgeable lady that owns the store quickly convinced us that black plastic was not the way to go. She recommended we do mulch (at least 6 inches deep) and lay down a special herbicide weed controller before planting. We ended up coming out cheaper going this route anyways and she says she uses it on all her commercial jobs. Time will tell if the weeds stay away. I will keep you posted. Anyways here is our truckload (she even gave us a whole yard of mulch free) of mulch for our project.
I ended up picking up 3 of the most beautiful hanging plants at the nursery too.
We were planning to dig up our neighbors Nandina plants. However it ended up that she had a different species of Nandinas and not the ones we wanted. So we made a second trip to the nursery to get 3 new Nandinas. We love the color they give year-round and that they stay low to the ground vs. regular boxwoods and hedges that we had previously.
We also picked up an Azalea bush (my first) that our nursery friend recommended I could actually plant in a container (as long as it is large enough).
This is the herbicide she recommended putting down in our bed before mulching. It was about $13 for this huge bag.
Another freebie she gave us was a pack of these organic feeders for plants. You just put them under the plants before filling in the dirt or just slip them in the side of any containers.
     AND HERE IS THE AFTER!!!










We love how it turned out!
All of the monkey grass was reused from what we had before. We also reused the two larger Nandinas on each end and added the three smaller ones in between. The shepherds hooks were a deal bought at the end of summer for $1 each!!




We still aren't sure what we are going to do with the bed on the left side of the door yet. We will probably plant more Nandinas like the other side or maybe make it into a sitting area. We also are thinking of adding a wooden trellis up the wall in the space between the door and the window on the left. What do you think? Any ideas?


Based on time and money in the next few months we may repaint the shutters to a darker blue (almost black tint) and we would love a new front door (the ones we've priced are $150 - $300). But we may just end up painting the one we have for now. Anyone else doing any curb appeal this year?