Reclaiming the yard

The yard reclamation project is currently underway. We hit the plant sales this week -- Jeni did the annual local farmers plant sale at the farmer's market and got some good stuff, then we camped out for 1-1/2 hours to get in to the botanical garden plant sale (in and out in eight minutes with good stuff). The uniqueness of the botanical garden sale is such a draw. The weather was supposed to be awful, and we did get rained on a bit, but not when it counted. Jeni and I have our system down so we get in and out efficiently -- like the plant version of the day after Thanksgiving.

We got a bunch of the plants in the ground today with a few more left to be planted. But they'll be OK for now.

Just two weeks until the MS walk-a-thon in Marietta with Nikki. This will be our second year at this event, and so happy to be able to support Nikki.

The Front Yard

I'll go ahead and apologize for the lengthy post, but for the amount of work we put in, it deserves a long post.

Dean and I decided to basically "gut" the yard and start over. The builders did as little as they had to do, and it showed. And the previous owners did even less. We knew we had our work cut out for us, so we started in early spring and luckily finished 95% of the projects before the South Carolina hot weather started.

Grand total for the front yard:
216 plants
10 bushes
1 palm tree
~950 lbs of compost, top soil and mulch
16 shrubs given away to a friend
2 ferns for the front porch

Here is a picture of the front foundation beds before we started.

All the bushes out...
Add 400lbs of compost, top soil, and mulch; put in 10 azalea bushes (between the two beds).....
Then finish it off with 8 daylilies(Catherine Neal, Custard Candy, Prairie Blue Eyes, and Strawberry Candy), 8 hosta 'Lady Guinevere', 4 Shasta daisies, 2 huge Crinum 'Bradley', 4 Columbine, 4 Penstemon 'Blue Buckle', 100 Tigridia bulbs, 2 butterfly bushes 'Black Knight', and 2 Robellini palms.

And today...
These are the faces of the daylilies in the front foundation beds.
From L-R - Catherine Neal, Custard Candy, Prairie Blue Eyes, and Strawberry Candy

And here is the bed the middle of the front yard. There was no definition to the bed, and as I said before they just put what shrubs they had left over in there. (In this picture, we had already removed the shrubs.)

We made the bed into a kidney shape; added 250lbs of compost, top soil, and mulch, then add in the plants -- 7 daylilies 'Black Eyed Stella', 7 daylilies 'Clara', 12 bareroot daylilies 'Just Watch' and 'Bourbon Kings', 14 hosta, 2 giant ginger lilies 'Luna Moth', and 2 daylilies 'Autumn Minaret. We also planted 15 Golden Spider Lily bulbs but I think the friendly neighborhood squirrels got them. The 14 daylilies are the only thing we kept from the original landscaping.

Here are some of the daylilies staring to bloom. Happy day!

Top:'Black Eyed Stella',

Bottom: 'Clara'

(I'm not a 100% because these are the one used from the previous landscaping.)

And today...
We put a windmill palm at the front of the yard. The palm is 4-5 years old, and we can't wait for it to start to get some height.

This is the front side yard. We forgot to take a before picture, but trust me, it looks a ton better. We removed 3 shrubs, a bunch of weeds/trees, and a huge bunch of ivy that was starting to move out into the yard.

First we gave the bed some definition, then we added 300 lbs of compost, top soil, and mulch; and then the plants - 15 lantana ('Ms. Huff' and 'Red Spread'), 3 Black-Eyed Susans, 3 flame flowers (Kniphofla uvaria 'Grandiflora'), and 2 bunches of pampas grass (to hide the transformer).