A Manicured Landscape

In front of my tuscan-colored home, we have a beautiful lawn and a bricked in garden area. For as many years as I can remember our garden area was occupied by ground-cover with a few shrubs for accent. It was overall to green, with not much color.

I learned earlier in the year when I was told to cut back the ground cover, as you must from time to time, I was allergic. I broke out in hives after touching it. All the more reason to rip it out and beautify the space with mulch and perennials.

This year, I got the first 2 steps complete. Over the course of a few hours here and there I had removed all the ground cover (wearing gloves to prevent the hives of course). I then raked the soil evenly and filled it in with mulch. Next year, I plan to accent the shrubs we have with pot of annuals, in a red/orange/yellow color scheme to compliment the butter color of our brick.


On the right side of the house (pictured above), I was able to get some perennials (mums) in the ground and a new red rhododendron planted. The rhododendron will have red flowers in the spring/summer, while the mums will remain green until late summer/fall. This will provide a great burst of color to this side of the house throughout the year and will compliment our existing japanese maple nicely. I had intended to plant an annual where the white alyssum is now this year, but the alyssum came back from the previous year even though it wasn't supposed to. Next year it will be an annual in red, orange or yellow.




This year, I will plant some tulip and daffodil bulbs on the left side (pictured above) of the house to provide spring color before the pots are completed for the year. 1-2 dark red mums may also still be planted on the left.

I am very excited about the clean look of my front yard and was even more thrilled when my aunt, a master gardener, complimented the "groomed, manicured" look of my yard!