Curb appeal is important! We love driving around older established neighborhoods and drooling over their large shade trees and beautiful flower gardens, it’s a dream right?! Makes you want to sit right on that porch with a glass of tea or wine. Don’t do that unless it’s your porch of course! We were fortunate to start with a blank canvas when designing our front garden beds. We knew we wanted them to extend the whole length of the house, so that’s what we did.
Here’s where we started last year…
Preparing the beds
We did a mix of things to get the ground ready for our plants. We tilled a bit and then layered down black landscaping cloth or cardboard. Both have worked relatively well, so use whatever resources you have. We bought a garden spade to use around our trees. Now we wish we would’ve also used it around the perimeter of the beds to keep the pesky Bermuda grass from rooting underneath and on top. We still have a few areas that we’re battling today.
Planting some love
Once the beds were ready, we stocked up on the babies that we wanted to plant. The plants that we bought were mostly perennials. We feel it’s best to spend the most money upfront and enjoy the beauty year after year.
First in were the shrubs since they will give us the height that we want. We chose an atlas cedar, bluepoint juniper, an upright juniper, and a butterfly bush. Then came the smaller shrubs such as a couple dwarf nandina firepowers, emerald gaiety euonymus, and winter gem boxwoods.
We filled in around the shrubs with perennials. We purchased hostas, salvia, lavender, heucheras, pink columbine, purple queen, and phlox. Also added were lamb’s ear that my mom gave me over 17 years ago and a deep magenta colored peony also a gift from my mom’s garden.
Last, we purchased annuals, our favorite being coleus! We also added petunias, marigolds(marketed as annual, but come back each year for us).
Finishing touches
We topped it all off with a mixture of black and brown mulch. Pretty risky in our 7b zone of summer heat waves, but we love the dark contrast the dark colored mulch gives off against the flowers. The only downside is that we tend to need to water more often as the dark mulch can be really hard on our flowers when it gets too hot. We break the soaker hoses out to help with this.
Here we are today, getting more beautifully established!
The yellowed area right outside the beds is where we’re treating the grass to extend the beds a bit further out, we can’t wait!
Don’t forget to fill your pots as well! Make sure to use a thriller, filler, and spiller for the best look. We always fill ours with a mixture of coleus, petunias, and sweet potato vine in blackie and margarita.
Whew, He makes beautiful things doesn’t He?! God is good! Now get out there and play in your garden!
xo, r+l