This is another post on our gardening and flowers.  The front yard.  We were pretty fortunate that our front yard had a lot of perennials and bushes.  We have just filled in the holes.

The front walk area was mulched and didn’t have a border, so the mulch pretty much fell into the grass.  Brian put a stone border all around the edges and around the Japanese Maple in the yard.  We had another tree, too, but it died the second summer we lived here.  It was little, so Brian just cut it down and we put a nice stone planter around the tree stump.   I usually plant flowering annuals in it.  This year it is filled with petunias and begonias.

One of our neighbors was replacing their stone with mulch, so we told them we would take their stone.  We put that over the mulch, so we didn’t have to deal with replacing it all the time.

The beginning of the path to the front door was just a big rock, so we planted a french lilac, a honeysuckle bush, hens and chicks, hydrangeas, and flowering meadow sage (salvia).  We also have a planter that we fill with a flowering annual – this year it has gardenias in it.  The sage has been filling in the open areas with it’s offspring, so it should be filled in at some point with that.  The bees just love it…they can hardly fly they are so full of pollen!  I was a bit worried about all the bee activity at the beginning of the walkway, but really they are so intent on collecting pollen that they don’t bother anyone.  I also think people need to get used to bumble and honey bees and not run screaming from them.  It’s very rare for them to sting anyone.  Our kids know the difference between the good bees and the bad bees.

We also have our white flowering crabapple tree that is so pretty in the spring.  The deer spend the winter eating the fruit from the lower branches.  Planted underneath the crabapple are hostas, astilbe, a peony and ferns.

By the front door there was a big overgrown rose bush.  The first year I pruned it, I was surprised there was anything alive under all the dead stuff.  I’m sure it hadn’t been pruned in a long time.  That was fun.  Good thick gloves are a must when pruning a rose bush!  We dug it up this spring since we were sick of it half dying off every year, and there were a bunch of cockleburrs in with it.  We replaced it with a nine bark bush, peonies, artemisia (wormwood) and firewitch.  I planted some pentunia and begonia annuals around that area, too, and some of our our lamium is seeding the area.   Hopefully by next year it will look more grown in.  Right now it looks a bit sparse, as new plantings usually look. 

In front of it next to the walk is our overgrown iris patch.  We have dug this up, too, every year taking a bit off it and transplanting to the backyard.  They were so grown over that they didn’t flower as much as they should.  We didn’t even know there were purple ones in there until we planted them in the backyard.  They were too choked off to flower!   They are done flowering, so I need to dig them all up.  The really need the grass removed and to be thinned out all the way.  Hopefully next year they should be able to flourish some more.

We planted some peach, white and red rose bushes, too.   For ground cover, we planted our silver lamium.  We love it and it spreads it’s babies around, too, so it is filling in open areas.   We love the plants that spread it’s babies…less to buy, you know!  They flower in the spring, which was a surprise to us.  The first year we planted it, we just expected it to be justy ivy groundcover.  The next spring they flowered so prettily, and we were happy to see that development.

We have bush that provides a hedge in front of the windows.  It has pink flowers in late May – early June.  It wasn’t pruned like it should have been, so we’ve been trying to keep it in line without cutting off all the growth.   So just a word of warning, prune every year to keep your hedge full!

Daylillies and Tiger lillies are in different areas along the path to the front door.  They flower in the summertime.  We also have a clematis, as well.  It has beautiful purple flowers on it in June.   One of our evergreen bushes died a few years ago, so we replaced it with three spirea bushes that have grown in beautifully.  They flower pink in late June.

The path wasn’t lit very well, so we bought these solar lights at Costco.  We have them in the backyard, as well, and they are so nice.  The defninitely throw off enough light.

Flowering schedule:

• Early May – Yellow Bearded Iris, white crabapple tree
• Late May – bogenvilla bush (we think that’s what it is), silver lamium, nine bark bush, roses
• June – daylillies, tiger lillies, peonies, clematis, astilbe, spirea, roses, annuals
• July – hostas, daylillies, roses, annuals
• August – daylillies, roses, annuals

Our front walk is usually flowering in the summer, and is so fun to look at.  We love it!