Backyard Garden - Month 2

Things are growing quickly around here so I want to try to keep track of it for once! Despite some crazy cold snaps at the end of March, things are looking good. The scarlet runner beans my daughter planted finally came up (after taking between 1-2 weeks for most to break ground!) and my spinach and lettuce seedlings have sprouted, and the cucumber seeds are now planted. Here's some pics of the garden 1 month ago:

And now. . .

The tomatoes are almost 2 feet high at this point!

Above are some spinach seedlings - hopefully I'll be able to get something out of them before it gets too hot!

Tomatillo flowers

Scarlet runner beans

Sunflowers in the upper right hand side

Pepper plants

Two of my blackberry plants have finally started to leaf out

Some of the others are coming up from the ground

We'll see what the next month brings!!

Front Yard Bed Done!

I say that, but really I still need to add mulch. But all the foundation plants are planted and the hardscaping put in!

I had been struggling for a long time about what to do with the front bed. It was originally home to Dr. Seuss-shaped yaupon, calla lilies that were always in a state of half-death, and enormous lantanas that, though, beautiful, produced nice clusters of beautiful berries that look just like blackberries. My toddler loves berries, so they had to go too.

Here's a reminder of what the front bed looked like when we bought the house (this is the only picture I have from the real estate website):

It looks fine from this angle, but until we took everything out, I had no idea how much it completely blocked the house (and the gorgeous azaleas in front of the windows (you hardly even knew they were there!).

This is what the front bed looked like after my husband and his dad ripped out all the yaupon and a small tree:

Yep, neighbors were probably not too happy about this eyesore (especially since it was like this for a couple of months!)

Once everything was ripped out, I realized a problem: the middle is just a big expanse of nothing and it is going to take a lot of plants to fill it.  Another thing I needed to keep in mind was that I wanted to convert this place (and more spaces in the future) to a mostly edible landscape (or if it's not edible, it should attract pollinators). I went back and forth about what to do, and even wasted spent an entire naptime staring at the front yard in hopes that something would come to me.

Then, last Friday night (late) the idea to put a hardscaped path and sitting area with a bench in the middle amidst some shrubbery and my varigated pink lemon tree came to me. I sketched it out and began on Saturday.

I finished the hardscaping on Saturday (which before I could do that involved leveling the whole bed which took a good couple of hours), and then Sunday I bought plants, amended the soil, and planted the main shrubs and trees. Monday, I finished planting a few of the flowers.

So here's how it looks now (keep in mind, it is only March so as things get growing, spaces will tighten up a bit):

Here is a list of the plants I used (including some that you can not see in the picture):

1 Varigated Pink Lemon Tree
2 Meiwa Kumquat Trees
6 'August Beauty' Gardenias
2 Lemongrass
2 Society Garlic
1 Mexican Honeysuckle
3 'Mealy Blue' Salvia
6 Angelonia
3 'Tifblue' Blueberry
1 'Climax' Blueberry
1 'Premier' Blueberry
1 'Sunshine Blue' Blueberry
2 Pineapple Sage
2 Mexican Bush Sage

The blueberry plants are planted on the ends of the bed. Assuming they do well, they can get as big as 6ft + so they will definitely fill in the space!

Well, that's all for now, but once things start growing a little more I will fill in a few of the spaces with some edibles (definitely some herbs and possibly some veggies too!).