Front Yard: Before and After

Our front yard in the neighborhood was not the greatest sight and I am sure it wouldn't be selected for any gardening magazine. For the past few months I spend  most of my weekends planning and visiting nurseries for ideas on landscaping our front yard. I've always wanted a garden filled with an array of annuals perennials, shrubs, to attract birds, bees, and butterflies. We look at several landscaping magazines for ideas on different types of designs and plans. We've decided to that our front yard will have a row of jasmine that  will give us some privacy; a layer of brick pavers along the border and a path of flagstones with buffalo grass.

The ground was solid hard and was covered with ghastly weeds and almost dead-looking grass. It looks pretty sad and neglected. John spent two weekends spraying roundup on the entire lawn. The ground was then rototilled and amended with fresh dirt and compost. The best part of it was getting down on my knees and hands to dig and plant all the freshly purchased plants and shrubs and grass seedlings. I have three different varieties of hydrangeas, tree peonies, lavender, rubeckia, wigelia, penstemon, salvia, chrysanthemum, coneflowers, daisies and a border of alternating rows of hostas with variegated leaves,white bacopa and purple nierembergias. I can't wait for the grass seedlings to germinate and all my darlings to grow and be blooming happy in their surroundings.