Now, on to the front yard

So, on Monday I planted the Azaleas, mums, and begonias in the back yard flower bed, and hooked up the soaker hose.  Now that the backyard was (well, atleast the part that I'm doing THIS year), I needed to move on to the front yard.

I thought I had better "before pictures" of the front flower beds, but these are the only ones I could find.  They were SOOO much worse than this!  sigghhh

This is the rosemary and lavender that was on the right side, and it was SO overgrown, that when I tried it trim it back it looked awful . . . so it got yanked.  It was a LOT of rosemary.  Luckily, I saved the smaller one of the left side, so we still have rosemary.  The lavender is gone.  It had grown sideways from the rosemary crowding it, and just looked bad.  I may plant another one?

 Here's the overview of it.  Those holly trees are really pretty, and I love them . . .but I HATE them!!  The roots are crazy!  They are all over, and will sprout up everywhere.  The spouts are pushing all the border stones over.

Here is the flower bed by the front door, and I didn't change anything with this one since I took this picture, but you can kinda see how over grown the rosemary was.

 Here's the rosemary that got saved, but cut back a lot.  There was also another lavender by this rosemary that was crowded out, that I didn't save.

NOW, for the after pictures.  Here's the flower bed by the front door.  I haven't changed anything in this one, but the blue flower ground cover has really taken off.

 Here's the saved rosemary bush and the bird bath next to it.  

 Here's where the other rosemary bush was, plus LOTS and lots of grass, weeds, roots and random plants that were dead or dying.

The stone border was also falling over.  I had to reset most of it, and move it out a couple of inches around the tree because of all the roots.




























Another angle of the bird bath (with a mosquito donut in it.)  I didn't fix the border on this side.  It wasn't too bad, and there are some ant beds on this side.  :(  Plus, I did the other side yesterday, and this side yesterday . . . and I was TIRED!

 Wide angle of the left side.

 Wide angle of the right side.

 So, now I need to decide what to plant.  I got a couple of weeks before I can plant anything.  First I need to put weed cloth down, then a BUNCH of dirt, then lay out some soaker/sprinkler hoses since we don't have a sprinkler system . . .THEN I'll be ready to plant.  I have about 100 bulbs (tulips and daffodils) that I'm going to put in the beds.  I need some stuff to stay in the beds permanently . . . I'm thinking nandina, but I'm not sure what else.  Any suggestions?  I don't want hedges.  I hate hedges.