Like last year, a big house focus for us has been working on the yard and the spring planting back in March was just the beginning.  A few days before my mom came in town we had the 2 sides of the dry rotted fence that we kept replaced and also built a small fence around the hvac on the side of the house.  With the new fence in, our weekend project with mom was to create a new bed and do a lot of planting!

Under the tree we planted 5 autumn ferns, then started adding color with an echinacea and verbena.  We pruned and transplanted the 3 pink rose bushes that were behind the porch in the new bed and put some yellow jethro tull flowers on the end. We left a spot for a tree to go in the corner, probably a little gem magnolia, that we’ll be planting this fall (too hot now).  Part of the project included digging out all the weeds that were there and starting to draw out where the edge of the bed would go.  The day mom left, Hunter and I finished up the bed by creating a solid edge and laying pine straw around everything.

In the last month the plants have all done great.  We’ve made sure to water them a lot and they got some miracle grow after the first 2 weeks.  The pruned & transplanted rose bushes have leaves again and are starting to bud.  We see this bed from the living room and it’s great to look out and see a pretty new fence and color!

Since we moved those 3 rose bushes, we picked up another yellow rose bush to go in the middle and then 2 purple pixie loropetalum to add some contrasting color and go between the rose bushes.  The remaining rose bushes were also pruned back.  A few weeks later all roses are about to bloom again and the loropetalum also has some pink blooms right now.

When we were edging the new bed by the fence, we also widened the bed around the porch.  We shoveled up and attempted to transplant some of the grass that was growing there that would now be part of the bed. We moved it to a bare area in the back yard and some of it took!  The grass has really been filling in around the dead spots the last few weeks and getting so green.

Mom suggested we move the azaleas that I planted, so we dug those up and planted a jubilation gardenia that will get pretty big and fill the space – plus the blooms will smell great on the porch!

Right around the corner we planted 3 blue hydrangeas in the spot beneath our dining room window.  I can’t wait to clip these blooms!  These beds all got a new layer of pine straw as well and have been doing great after a short scare where they were just really thirsty.

We moved the 4 baby azaleas in a diamond shape between the Japanese maple and pine tree.  We started laying more pine straw around here, but that’s where we ran out so we need to finish it around the other side of the tree and define the bed more.  We’ll probably add some more azaleas so we’ll have a nice clump of pink when they bloom in the spring!

On the side of the house we had to put a fence around our hvac unit, which gave us another place to add some color with plants! We planted 3 ligustrums on one side which are a bright yellowy green.  We planted some of these at our old house and we both loved them, so they were an easy choice.  We also added a red diamond loropetalum in the corner that will grow fairly large and fill that area and add a purple color to the greens.

As if that wasn’t enough, we’ve also tackled sod in the front yard!  We had a huge dead spot in the front and Hunter found a great deal so one Friday afternoon we were prepping the yard for sod (before heading to a welcome party for a friend’s wedding).  The next morning we laid 2 pallets of sod and managed to shower and get ready for that wedding before our friends arrived at noon to all head downtown together.  Talk about exhausting, but man that grass looks good!

We’ve been watering it with a sprinkler to make sure it took and it’s doing great!  It’s weird to see green where I was used to seeing dirt, but green looks wayyyyy better.  There are a few other places we need to put sod in in the front so we probably need one more pallet to complete that project.

The Mexican heather and sago palms on the side are also still doing great and blooming.  Now I think we’re at a good place to maintain throughout the summer and hope more of the grass in the back grows until we can plant the tree and laid more sod in the front!

We have put a lot of time and sweat into this yard, but it’s so worth it as I sit on the porch and enjoy all the plants and grass.  I’m also enjoying the rain watering them so I don’t have to today, haha.

I’ll leave you with a picture of us an hour after we were laying sod and before we left for our friend’s wedding – proud of our new flower bed behind us!