Landscaping Project

Back in May and the beginning of June, we did a little landscaping in our front yard.  Yes, I'm just now getting around to blogging about it.  There was an area below our porch that was open and it didn't look very nice.  We needed to get the area covered up.  After a lot of thinking and going back and forth with different ideas, we chose to add siding to the area that was open and to plant some shrubs and flowers.

Before
Sorry for the bad picture

We had an area approximately 4 feet by 20 feet to work with.  The area was originally covered with small rocks, so the first step was removing those and then we added some edging between the soon to be planted area and our grass.  Then the husband and our good friend, Matt, worked on putting up the siding.  Luckily, we didn't have to paint the siding, it was a pretty close match to what we already have.  (And sorry, I don't have any progress pictures of getting the siding up.  I'll blame morning sickness.)

We were able to borrow a friends truck to pick up all of our supplies and get load of compost.  Thanks Jacqueline and Travis!

The next step, was adding a new sprinkler head to the area.  I don't know all the steps, but it was fairly easy, since we were able to add on to an existing sprinkler head.  After that, we mixed in the compost with the dirt that was already there and then started planting.

Prepping for the siding

Sprinkler Head

Compost

The three main shrubs in the back are Dwarf Burning Bushes.  They are suppose to turn a red color in the fall.  We planted a couple purple Roman Candles, a Dusseldorf Pride Sea Pink, a Electric Pink Cordyline (the maroon plant in the bottom left corner), a Lupine and some Creeping Thyme.  All of which are perennials, so hopefully, they will survive and come back every year.  I also planted a few annuals to fill up the space.  After everything was planted we covered the ground with rubber mulch.  It was more expensive, but it isn't suppose to fade and its suppose to last a lot longer than regular mulch.  We also added a few rocks that we picked up from Flathead Lake, when we were there over Memorial Weekend.

Dusseldorf Pride Sea Pink

Dense Magenta Flowers

Mounding Perennial

Royal Candles

Spikes of Violet-Blue Flowers

Upright Perennial

Chris raked our left over compost into our yard and it really helped green it up.

It looks so much better than it did before.  I'm really glad we enclosed the area with the siding and added some color to the front of our house.

Cheers!