Spring Front Yard 2012

Spring Front Yard 2012

My front yard planting bed has often been my experimental lab. It's a small planting bed (in my grandiose opinion) and I dont' have a lot of room to experiment or try new things. Luckily it's a sunny bed, even though it is north facing and I can usually squeeze in a new plant or edit something I didn't like.

 This year, I had several "annual" plants decide to overwinter and come back - mainly most of the primroses I planted last spring. Great addition to the spring planting!

I doubled my tulip and daffodil bulbs last fall and you can see the bright colors that all came out this past weekend in the 80 degree sunny days!

This year I tucked a blueberry plant in a container (it's that big terracotta thing) behind my daylillies. My plan is to paint the pot with spray paint made for plastics in hopes that it won't stick out like a sore thumb in the bed.

this is the shade portion of the front bed - I moved all my columbines next to each other to create a mini mass planting (there are five plants in there!). The early daffodil leaves poke out amongst the columbine and I'm thinking I may go out to cut them down so they don't distract that much. (overwintered primrose peeking out underneath)

This is the bed that sits under our front bay window. The tulips are a bright pop of color greeting each visitor. This bed also has two grand hydrangea plants that grow so large they cover half the window (which, frankly, doesn't bother me a bit because it is a fantastic privacy shade without sacrificing any light!)

 View front the front porch looking down to the driveway and street. Sigh. Isn't Oregon beautiful?

I started this project last week. You can't really tell from the pictures, but I'm putting landscape fabric down between the boxwoods and then putting mulch over the fabric. I'm so sick and tired of weeding this part of my yard.

I also started in on my front containers. My front porch is completely shaded, so I opt for shade-loving plants for the containers. I dug up a small fern from my yard and transplanted it into the larger container and finished off with pansies. I'm looking for a bright chartreuse colored heuchera to go on the left side of this container - probably something I'll only find in a specialty nursery.

I also started my porch planters. I've done this arrangement a few years ago and after a few years of playing around with other plantings, I've decided that this combination is my favorite.

In the back - Coleus

In the middle - Impatiens and Pansies (white and purple tones)

In the front - fuchsias and trailing verbena on the front corners

  

I have yet to find the coleus and so only the front two layers are planted thus far, but check out what overwintered. It's an asparagus fern from last year's planter. Maybe I'll incorporate it into the planting or transplant to another.

I'll update front yard once the spring plants die down and we get set for the main show of summer plantings. Hurray for a new gardening year!

Linking with Tuesday Garden Party