The rest of the tour

It's time for a tour of the front yard. Like the back yard, the front yard of the new house has some landscaping, but it's just begging for a little more personality. One twist is that the front yard is the dogs' yard. The house sits on a slope from front to back, and prior owners installed the fence and retaining wall in such a way that there is no way to get into the back yard that doesn't involve at least three steps. The dogs are too old and too big to safely go up and down steps, so the backyard is not an option. Unfortunately, the front yard isn't fenced, so we are currently having to leash the girls every time we take them outside. Fence installation has been scheduled, however, so in just a few weeks, they will be able to spend more time outside, and I can start working on the front yard landscaping.

This is the view from roughly the middle of the yard, looking toward the house.

The bed along the front of the house consists of boxwoods (stinky, stinky boxwoods), sedum, coneflowers and some prickly shrub I haven't identified. It isn't beautiful, but I have long-term plans to build a covered front porch, so I won't be messing with this bed too much.

An ornamental bed runs the full length of the driveway, and turns the corner to surround the mailbox.

Unfortunately, the ornamentals include yuccas, which I detest in any setting other than the desert, some type of low-growing evergreen, and some so-so little shrubs.

Another view. My plan for this space is to turn it into a perennial flower bed. I don't love small shrubs, and I hate those evergreens. The hostas may stay, and there are a couple perennials worth keeping, a sedum and another one I can't name, but virtually everything else will be taken out.

I have a strange compulsion to garden by color when it comes to flowers. At the old house, I had one large perennial bed devoted to orange flowers and a smaller one made up of only pink. This time around, I'm going to go a little easier on myself, and divide this area into four color zones. From back to front, it will be purple, pink, orange and yellow. I'm planning on tulips, irises, asiatic lilies, coneflowers, gallardia and maybe black-eyed Susan. That should make season-long color.

Speaking of black-eyed Susans, there is one more flower bed, between the garage and the house.

This one has more yuccas, more boxwoods, Stella d'Oro day lilies, a couple small Shasta daisies, and black-eyed Susans.

The black-eyed Susans have been absolutely beautiful. My plan for this bed is to make it an herb garden. The yuccas, boxwoods and day lilies have got to go. The other flowers will probably stay and be joined by basil, rosemary, etc. I might even put kale here. This bed is just a few steps from the door, right outside the kitchen, so it's perfectly situated for some quick snipping when one is cooking.

I certainly have my work cut out for me. Unfortunately, my plans involve a lot of destruction. I don't particularly like killing plants, but so many of the existing plants are somewhat worthless, in my opinion, and I want my flower beds to be prettier, with more personality that is reflective of my taste.

I'm getting tired just thinking about all this work, and I haven't even touched on what I want to do with the rest of the yard. It's a more long-term project, but for starters, I'm hoping to plant a couple peach trees this fall.