New Beginning

My front yard is boring. Grass, just grass and a couple of places to put pretty things.





It’s small, and the grass isn’t doing very well.



The little bed along the porch has been over-planted with Calla Lilies and the soil’s not in very good shape. The whole thing lacks imagination and doesn’t add any interest to the space. I could spend a lot of time and money amending the soil and patching the bald spots, but it would still be this little tiny patch of grass. Let’s face it, I’m just not happy with it.

Boring.

Fortunately, I have a best friend who’s a landscape designer. I look at this space and I see something boring, she looks at it and sees potential. She and I spent part of an afternoon talking about the kinds of plants that I like, and she came up with a plan.

We’re going to put in paths and build up sloped beds. We’ll salvage the stones used in the current construction to hold the new soil in place and we’ll use gravel and walkable ground covers for the paths.

So my husband and I spent a few hours on Sunday digging out quite a bit of grass. It was hot sweaty work, but one of the things that kept him willing was the knowledge that he'll never have to mow the front yard again.

This is what we've got now:





The wall in front of the lonely rose is going to come down, and the new path will curve up into the space



I know it looks like boring grass accented with a bunch of dirt right now, but hopefully it will look like a whole new garden in a few weeks. I need to take out the sprinkler system, since I won’t be needing it with the new plantings. I’ll be taking out soil until the paths are three inches below grade. Then I’ll put down cardboard over the remaining grass. This will smother the grass but not harm the soil, and it will compost right back down into the dirt.

Truck in some gravel and topsoil, get the new plants and shrubs into place, and hey-presto! New space!

I’m excited. Even with the project barely begun I can see the potential now.