Vacation Progress

Having spent most of my Spring vacation tucked away in a basement... (don't ask :-) I did manage to get in two glorious days of digging and planting. Mostly I worked on the foundation plantings since we started with a mess that took most of last year to tame. I needed to get in some shrubs that will eventually fill in and give some structure to the beds.

As a reminder... this is what things looked like a year ago when we bought the house:

 Then we got to this early last year after the trees were removed:

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And after a bit more progress in July of 2011:

And now a few shots from this week's progress:

 LEFT: View from the front walk showing the new veggie garden beds. Went with a rose standard in the center pot for now. The blue pots will be ornamental peppers and nasturtiums once the weather warms a tad!  Hard to see in this photo but I added some bright red azaleas in the main bed right under the planter boxes. They should really pop in ta few years. RIGHT: The front entrance. Sadly only one of the evergreen standards survived the winter/remodel... I replaced them with two holly bushes which will be a bit more forgiving of the lack of sunlight in the winter. Eventually I'll trim them up in a formal cone shape. They need to settle in first. All of the mums and pansies in the pots are still going from last year! I also planted two pieris bushes right behind the planters which are small now but will eventually fill in on either side of the steps.

East Side Bed

This bed (ABOVE) is where the little veggie garden was last year. The only repeat here is the very happy hosta. Everything else is newly planted including a butterfly bush and three day lily clumps from my buddy Marc. I also planted in a few Bleeding Hearts which I love. 

 This is the new bed that I made last year with the blocks from Dan and Jo on the west side of the front. It was completely empty past year except for the rose and a false indigo bush (not up yet!). On this side I planted two purple rhododendrons, a pieris, three columbines, three day lily clumps (from Marc), and one of my baby lilacs that I propagated from  root divisions last fall. I also used some of the left overs from this year's tree removal project to make some stepping "stones" into the bed so I can tend to the climbing rose. I think they look pretty nice. 

I also planted a few additional plants in the East side shade garden outside of the library:

This bed is filling up delightfully! I added three foam flowers, and three hellebore plants (aka Lenten rose). I have some coral bells still growing in the basement and will get those out there too in the next month or two! 

I also replanted the planters on the pedestals since I use annuals there:

NOT pictured but also accomplished.... I finished the trench to bring the water line and future power line from the veggie beds to the house. Hopefully I'll finish the water connections this week so the watering will be a bit easier (especially now that I can't drag the hose through the empty east side bed... I also planted two tree peonies and 4 mungo pines to spruce up the area right inside the front gate. What you might be able to see is I also took the time to label nearly everything in the foundation beds so that I know what/where they are and of course so that visitors know too! I've used 100+ labels just in the foundation beds!!!