Front Yard pics taken July 5 and 6, 2008

This flower bed, the peonies and lily of the valley were planted by my mother in law.  This is the south side of our house.  I have had trouble figuring out what to plant in the box, as it is dry shade, but also gets some hot west sun.

The big maple tree is to the left of the benches.  The small raised bed around the tree was put there by my in-laws.  You can see my garden window on the right, east side of the house.  The bushes in front of the house were already there when we moved in 10 years ago.  I got the arbor at a garage sale, but Larry went out and bought the hardware for it, as it didn't seem to come with it.  

The large bed was put in June of '08.

This bed was put in because our neighbor across the street had to have her water main replaced around 4 years ago, and they had to dig in our yard.  There was quite a debate as to what the size of the bed was going to be.  I wanted to make it much bigger, but we had to compromise. Plus, I wasn't doing the tilling.

The next year, Larry decided he wanted to put a bed on the other side for the sake of symmetry.  I planted some of the same plants, but also tried for some that were of similar size or shape.

 

Here they are from the other direction, looking away from the house.  I'm not a fan of the shape of these beds, and hope to change the one on the right side at some point.  We did just extend the left one near the fire hydrant to make a longer narrower bed near the street, where the grass wasn't growing.

Back to looking toward the house:

The front of the new bed was a circle bed, mostly planted with orange, red, and yellow.

View from the side yard, facing away from the front of the house:

The new bed filled out quite a bit in September and October, and next year will be fuller.  In my post from October 9th, I posted some pictures of the new bed at a couple different stages.

I am up past my bed time again.  I put these up because someone on the Cottage Garden Forum wanted ideas for his front yard.  I feel like I have a ways to go to be considered "cottage" as far as fullness goes.  I am looking forward to enjoying growing more kinds of flowers as time goes by.  I get joy from taking care of individual plants and seeing how they relate to each other.