The One with the... Front Yard Landscaping

It's been more than 2 years since we moved into the house and because we've been so busy working on the inside of the house, we really haven't touched the outside.  When Spring came this year, I started talking about landscaping in the front yard.  Every day when we take the dog child on a walk, I always admire the houses in the neighborhood that have nice landscaping.  Dave and I really have no clue when it comes to landscaping, but with some help and lots of googling, we kind of hobbled together a plan!  

The first task was to dig up and clear out everything that we didn't want anymore.  We thought about reusing existing plants/shrubs to save money but once we started digging, there was no stopping us!  This front yard landscaping project took us a total of about 3 days over 4 weekends.  Here are some before and after pictures: 

Before - Whole front yard 

After - Whole front yard 

Before - Right side 

What the picture above doesn't show is floor covering stuff that was under the dogwood tree.  I have no idea what it was called, but it was quite annoying and covered the whole area under the tree where there is dirt.  Whatever that plant was, we're sure glad it's gone because it was also a pain to dig up!  And we also dug up the daffodils that were overgrowing.   Here's what it looks like now: 

After - Right side

As you can see we kept the cherry laurel bushes along the window sills.  Then we got 4  Encore Azaleas bushes from Home Depot when they were on sale and planted them in front of the dogwood tree.  They are called 'encore' because they bloom 3 times a year- Spring, Summer, and Fall whereas most other azaleas only bloom once in the Spring.  We missed the first bloom for these bushes but I'm looking forward to seeing them in bloom again in the summer! In the front along the walkway are verigated hostas.  When I was at Costco a few weeks ago to pick up one rose bush (keep reading), I came home with one rose bush and 8 hostas.  Someone had recommended that we plant hostas along the walkway and Costco was having such a good deal on 3 gallon hostas that I just couldn't resist!  Lastly, to add a bit of color, I carved out a little area for some annuals in the front right corner.  

On the left side of the front yard we used to have nandina bushes along the window sills,  barberry bushes in front, and then some daffodils sprinkled all over.  At first we thought about keeping the barberry bushes but when we were digging up the other plants we quickly realized that the barberry bushes are mosquito havens!  So got chucked!  I think we got a little dig happy on this side because we dug up every bush/plant on this side and left ourselves with a blank canvas.  Here is the before picture: 

Before- Left side 

This side of the house gets sun for a better part of the day, so to take advantage of that, we planted Knockout Roses!  A coworker had told me about the Knockout Roses and why they are so popular these days-- They bloom from Spring to the first frost and for rose bushes they are very low maintenance.  And they are disease resistant!  I call them "roses for dummies."  We were at Costco a few weeks ago and when I saw that they had 3 gallon Knockout Roses for only $13.59 each, I immediately grabbed 3!  In my excitement I really didn't fully think through how far apart the roses need to be planted and we were one short.  So the following Monday I went back to Costco to grab one more rose bush (and 8 hostas-- see above).  Within two weeks of planting the rose bushes, the roses started blooming!!   They will grow up to 4 feet tall by 4 feet wide if you don't trim them.  Our goal is to let them grow to just about the bottom of the window sill.  Here is an after picture of the left side:

After - Left side

And then there is the mailbox.  If you remember from last year, we had to replace our mailbox due to a minor taxi accident.  Since then, we really hadn't touched the mailbox or the landscaping around the mailbox.  This is what the mailbox area looked 3 weeks ago: 

Before - Mailbox 

Because of the sad state of the plants and weeds that were growing near the mailbox, we were advised to just clear out everything and start from scratch.  We plan to lay down sod to make this area smaller and more manageable, but Home Depot ran out of sod.  And we planted one of the hostas near the mailbox and surrounded it with annuals.  Unfortunately the deer liked the hostas a little too much and made it their breakfast a few days ago. :(   

After - Mailbox

We are SO excited and happy to be DONE with the front yard landscaping!!! Landscaping and gardening is much more difficult and labor intensive than I had thought!  Thank goodness I have Dave to carry around bags of mulch because we used a total of 30 bags of it!     Now that we've planted some good perennials, hopefully this means that from now on, there will be somewhat minimal maintenance and all I have to worry about is to change out the annuals each season. *fingers crossed*