A Brand New Look

We have been busy this month. We spent two weekends clearing everything out of the front and back flower beds. I have not like my flower beds since the day we moved in but I never knew what I wanted to do with them. In the begining, I planted flags(not sure of the real name, they are pretty, like irises or Easter lillies) but the one time bloomers bloom very early spring and are just green the rest of the year. They are also notorious for multiplying tremendously. For that reason they destroyed the thing I tried to do several years ago which was plant roses and dwarf youpon holly. After killing 3 out of 4 youpon holly(these are the cute little round bushes) and running over my roses I finally realized the flags would have to go. It was hard to let them go because I am not a plant person and don't have a green thumb AT ALL to which lead me to the flags in the first place. YOU SIMPLY CAN"T KILL THE FLAGS! I needed something alive and green. Now that they are gone, I am so glad that we went through the trouble of taking them out. They no longer reside at our house....long, long, gone!
The plants we chose were again to try the youpon holly(round, front row) and variegated pittisporum(back row.)These are the knock out roses. They are what we planted on the left of the first picture. you can see some of them in that picture, too. They are already blooming a really pale yellow rose. Plus I really enjoy having the mulch!!! It makes a lot of difference!!! Some of you may remember the rows of bricks that outlined our beds. Yep, they are gone and made a huge impact, as well. Did I say how much I love the new flower beds? Correction, MY flower beds!!!! Oh, and we outlined the front of the beds with solar lights. I didn't know I wanted them until I saw them lit up one evening! LOVE THEM NOW! I wanted you to see the blooms on the knockout roses!!! B-e-a-utiful!!!This is my hummingbird bush. See how bright and pretty it is? I was not so sure about the orange(it hadn't bloomed when we bought it) but I thought the orange would go nice with the yellow knock out roses and now that it has bloomed I know it was the perfect choice! This is the back flower beds now, after the rose bushes were transplanted. It may not be as pretty as the front beds but I know that once those roses start blooming it will be just as pretty and smell good, too. They won't have to compete with anything else this way. Plus I moved all my kids statues to the back .

Well, there was a lot of sweat and tears put into it but it has certainlly been worth it to me. It has been an entore month since we started this project and I could not be happier to finally have something nice to look at as I come and go. I even added yellow pansies to the both sides of my front door in huge pots just for the final touch. Now, time for the garden!!!!!