Landscaping plans

Adam and I took advantage of last weekend's amazing weather to get some work done outside. This is our second spring in this house, so while last spring was spent doing loads of clean-up and just figuring out what grew where, this year we can start to refine what we have and make plans for what we'd like to have down the road.

Last year we dug two new beds - one in front of the house and a larger one around the side of the house. We added several new plants and mulched both beds. The cost of new plants adds up quickly, so we try to save money by buying later in the season (later in the season = sale time) and choosing plants that come with a guarantee.

This year I knew I wanted to update the beds' shape and add a few more plants to help fill things out. I looked through last year's photos (this is where having a blog comes in handy) and roughly sketched out my plans for this year.

After living here for a year, I have a better idea of which plants will do well where. I also gave some thought to colour, shape, hardiness and general maintenance (I prefer low).

After a quick trip to Kent for some super on-sale black cedar mulch, I started digging out the new shape of the beds while Adam cleaned up the hostas that border our yard and raked up the rest of last year's leaves.

Starting with the large bed around the side of the house, I used my shovel to "mark" the new outline of the bed, then turned over the soil, patted it down with the back of my shovel and covered it with mulch.

{unfortunately the sunshine, though good for the soul, is not so good for photo-documenting}

The new mulch looks darker because it was wet, but once dry, it blends with the exsiting mulch perfectly (we also spread some new stuff around the rest of the bed for good measure).

Here's a better view of how the bed changed shape:

{old bed shape}



{new bed shape}

We have an abundance of large rocks on our property, so I asked Adam to carry a few over to the bed to help fill in the empty spots. The plan is to add new golden euonymous shrubs on either side of the existing one and a new flowering shrub (maybe a goldfinger potentilla?) between our purple smoke bush and blue evergreen.

 

We'll also divide the large blue hosta next to our driveway and transplant it near the two existing hostas (which you obviously can't see yet).

The bed in front of our house also got a shape update. I basically extended it to the end of the walkway and added a little swoop, just for fun.

{old bed shape}

{new bed shape}

And yes, I made Adam move a few more rocks.

The plan for this bed is to dig up that rose bush (it doesn't actually flower and I'm afraid I don't have the gardening skills for roses) and replace it with a Japanese maple. Adam and I both love Japanese maples and always said we wanted to plant one in our future yard. We also have plans to add another holly bush (turns out you need a male and a female for red berries - oops), which will eventually form a nice hedge in front of the juniper (we plan to keep the holly bushes low, while letting the juniper grow nice and tall). And we'll fill up the new section with a couple of shrubs on either side of that lone rock. Right now I'm thinking spireas - we already have one in another part of our yard and love it.

This is only some of what we're planning in terms of landscaping this year, so expect to see more yard updates in future posts. Oh, and I had to share this picture of our dog Maddie hanging out with us while we worked. Rough life, eh?