Planting the Front Yard

After a marathon plant shopping spree with a friend on Saturday, I finally started putting some of my front yard plants in the ground. But first I planted up two containers for the front. The first one is for the porch where there is no direct sun. The cement urn is from a neighbor who no longer wanted it. The pinkish leaves are a fushia calico, sport of Gartenmeister; with a fern pellaea rotundifolia otherwise know as a button fern, and there are several pink impatiens that are too small to see yet.
The second pot is for a spot in full sun. The main plant is Heuchera Dolce Creme de Menthe, with some Perilla Magilla purple, and Dicondra Silver Falls, and my favorite, Millions of Bells. I've usually not put so much in my containers, but have learned from my Fine Gardening magazine that they look much better when planted really full. So I guess I'll see.

For about four hours on Sunday and another two today I double dug the first section of the front new garden space. It's located at the corner of the driveway and the sidewalk, and is the point of the berm. The soil in my yard is awful - sand and black mud which are totally lacking in all important nutrients and have a 5.4 pH according to the soil sample I had tested a couple months ago. So as I dug the trenches, I amended with lime, biofish fertilizer and an organic compost. What a pleasure it is to now dig in that area to plant.

My plan is to have this garden be as drought tolerant in the summer and moisture tolerant in the winter as possible. So plants were selected with that in mind. In the photo you will see a small, reddish Japanese maple tree that will get about 5 - 6 feet tall and will be primarily upright with a bit of a drape, 3 carex that will have lovely brown tipped seed stalks, coreopsis - tickseed, a Phormium 'Maori Sunrise' that will get about 3 feet tall, and a day lily 'Stella d'Ora'. There are also a red creeping thyme and a draping ice plant by the wall. The mass of bright green to the bottom right is my purple scented violet that spreads all over my yard. It's easy to pull after it's bloomed so I just love it and encourage it to naturalize freely. In the right rear you can also see an established bed that has a red barberry, iris, calla lilies, pulmonaria, Asiatic lillies, a huge daphne, yarrow, and penstemon in it. I've been adding to that one for many years and it's really well filled in now.

Hope you enjoyed this garden tour as much as I enjoyed creating it.