Project Garden Makeover!

Before it gets much closer to winter, I'd better post these pictures of my front garden!  Considering the day is cool and wet and dreary, it's nice to remember the absolutely gorgeous weather here!

I can't really explain why this was so high on our priority list, but both John and I agreed that we wanted to plant the flower bed in the front.  Maybe we wanted to make the house look ours; or maybe we were just taking advantage of the rare lovely weather.  It's only nice here maybe 5 weeks out of the year - we need to spend all the time outside that we can when it's nice!

Here are some BEFORE pictures:

Confession - this is after I dug everything up.  I'd forgotten to get a true
BEFORE picture.  It didn't look much better, though.

Yay, front of my house!

John and I spent about 2 hours in Lowes, wandering around the gardening section.  Neither one of us had any experience doing this, so we were reading all the plant labels, and finally tracked someone down to talk to us.  This is what we ended up buying:

Mums!  Honestly, not our first choice, but we liked the colors, and they
were on sale. 

Apparently these are called "Dusty Miller"  We thought they looked cool -
especially next to the colors of the mums.

We also bought a honeysuckle climbing vine - but I guess I didn't take a picture of it.

Next:  THE PROCESS!

I broke up the dirt, and John decided that all the bricks surrounding the bed needed to be raised.  So, we re-sized the bed, and raised each of the bricks by a few inches.  While John was doing that, I was pulling all the weeds out of the bed.  I may have gotten a bit carried away with it (John says I'm too much of a perfectionist), but the end result looked nice, I think!

Totally ready for planting!

John was so right about raising the stones.  It looks so much better!

And so, we began planting - by far the most fun part of the afternoon (and the quickest)!

John's parents had given us a large box of bulbs (both orchid and lily), so we planted those along the back of the bed, close to the house.  We then placed a medium sized trellis to the right of the window, and planted the honeysuckle vine so that it would climb the trellis.  (That is a total experiment on our part.  If it grows out of control, or attracts bees or something, we'll tear it out.  We don't want to deal with bees that close to the front door.)

Next, we placed a few rows of the Dusty Miller, and planted the mums in the very front.

Ready to see?

Doesn't it look nice?  The Dusty Miller is supposed to grow taller than the
Mums, which is why they're toward the back.  You can't see the bulbs.

Yay!  Project, successful!

All in all, this project took us about 4.5 hours (including the time in the store), and cost us about $80-$100 (we had to buy all the tools, and the soil).  We're hoping that they last through the winter, and we can enjoy them this spring.  We're not expecting anything to grow this summer.  100+degrees does not equal a good garden!