Walkway Garden - Go!

Ever since installing our walkway arch last fall, I've been waiting for the ground to thaw (and the feet of snow we got in Kansas City to melt) so I could begin the front walkway garden I'd been dreaming of. I just so happened to be off work on Friday, and it just so happened to be sunny and beautiful, so I got to work.

Like many projects, the first step was the least fun, involving digging out all the sod that C has worked so hard on (don't worry, I had his blessing) and filling in the trench with mulch. It was total grunt work, so I was grateful to have a beautiful spring day (and a serious case of spring fever) to motivate me to get it over with.

  

We planned the shape of the beds to duplicate the shape of our walkway - which we have named "The Wine Bottle." The beds also maintain the strong symmetry of our home. The new lines add some nice drama to our sloping front yard, with the dark mulch accentuating the nice green grass.

C even said it looked like a baseball field. Whether he was just being sweet because I was so tired, or really meant it, it's pretty much the ultimate compliment from a former baseball pitcher.

I managed to wait two whole days, admiring my mulch, before I couldn't stand it anymore and picked up a few plants to get the garden started. It was Easter Sunday and my favorite local nursery was closed, so we did a quick Home Depot run and got a few staples to start adding shape to the walkway.

Enter four small sedge varieties, two blue fescue balls and two ranunculus, and things were starting to take shape. I laid them out carefully, alternating the sedge so that they won't crowd the walkway from both sides.

Everything is perennial except for the ranunculus, which is an annual in our area. I don't often put annuals in the ground, but these tiny plants with huge round blooms were just too cute to resist, and it's a bit too early for some of the other perennials I'm planning on adding.

I think as I add more plants I'll keep adding more sedge and fescue - I love the texture they provide, and they are nice tough plants to stand up to the intense sun of our west-facing front yard. 

So, here's the yard before the arch and flowerbeds:

And here it is now.

It's just a start, but a very satisfying one to me. As the weather continues to warm, I'll keep filling in the walkway at the top of the steps, get some climbers planted by the arch, and - most dramatically - plant the wide triangle portions of the beds that go down the hill.

Over the next few weeks, as the weather continues to warm, I'll add some topiary shrubs near the bottom of the hill:



Surrounded by more grasses, as well as some low-growing, tough flowers and ornamental cabbage.

 

And perhaps most importantly, some climbing english roses and clematis to grow up over the arch - adding beautiful blooms and fragrance to welcome visitors into the yard.  

I can't wait to get the rest of the space filled in and growing, but for now my few little grasses and flowers will have to hold me over. As well as some viola I packed into the window boxes on our front porch - I just couldn't resist!

Inspired

This weekend, Chris and I will be sanding and painting shingles, which is a good thing. But it would be better if the sanding and painting were finished and we were installing gutter planters on the side of our garage, don't you think?

Oh well. Instead we'll do our painting and I'll start looking for old gutters on craigslist and at Habitat ReStore. This project is officially on the list!

Greening Up

We spent the morning going through the local nursery, and I'm feeling especially inspired for the summer ahead. In addition to our regular vegetable garden, I have some big flowerbed plans for this year. A nursery employee walked around with us this morning and helped me sort through some ideas. Long story short, there are exciting things ahead. Here's some eye candy.

 

Most of my planting so far has been perennials - flowers that die down each winter but come back in the spring. I love them and the life they give our yard through the growing season. This year, though, I'm going big. This means shrubs that will give shape all year long, and yes even another tree. It's exciting stuff.

Not that things aren't already happening. Due to the warm winter we've experienced here in KC, my spring bulbs are about a month ahead of their usual spring schedule. And I love it. It's nice to start seeing some life after a very grey and brown season. So far we've seen lots of crocuses and some daffodil buds.

 

  

Also, we came to the realization this winter that when we purchased our eight boxwoods for out front our first spring in the house, we must have accidentally purchased seven of one kind and one of a different kind. (Can you find the odd one out?)

We described the issue at the nursery today (it grows out rather than up and has a slightly more purple color to its leaves) and the nursery employee confirmed our suspicions. So, we'll be replacing the "one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-others" shrub this summer. Maybe our little odd guy out will become part of our newly expanded garden areas after we plant his replacement.