Good luck with your new project. I enjoy just walking around now...almost out of energy for new plantings. Wait, I just ordered 200 small bare root items...and they are in the ground! I did have to take a muscle relaxer afterwards. Darn this old age!!

Dottie,
I know this is an old thread, but I was wondering how your project is coming along with the front of your property.
We bought our home as a new build, 180 ft road front with about 50 ft of it wooded, which I love.
But the front in front of my house, was completely vacant. All sand, no soil at all.
Our steet, unfortuanately is too busy for me. The view is beautiful from my porch, i look at woods across the street, the neighbor wants it that way. another neighbor has a 7 acrea tract with small home and plenty of trees and he used to have horses, but he got rid of them.
My husband wanted a lawn, which is ridiculous, but he is trying for 4 eyars to have one. Too much work in my opinion, and expensive, but he wants it.
I planted 2 butterfly bushes and mexican petunias right in the front by the road, they can get as big as they want.
After ulching a couple eyars, it is slowly turning to soil.
In back of the flowering bushes, I planted 5 pittosporums, they stay evergreen and have white orange scented blooms in the spring.
I thought they were going to die the year after i plante dthem, but they are really growing this year.
Every year I dig the grass out from around them and mulch them real good. Now the mulch has turned to soil.
On the front lawn right in front of the house I have a very big pink crape myrtle with the most gorgeous fall color I have ever seen. The flowers are pink and ordinary, but in the fall, it is fantastic!
Over on the far right side (about 30 fett from crape) i planted a blue chaste tree. Very good color and fragrance.
SOrry for going on like this, have you decided what you would like to do with the front of your house?
I guess it takes a while to decide, I would like to have all trees and shrubs out front, personally i think grass is a waste, but I guess it's just personal taste.

hi butterfly,
No, this past year I've used to determine sun paths,brief but full sun pockets of ground that could hold perennials etc.
What lawn I have in the front yard succeeds because it gets dappled sun under huge,mature trees. It's really just about a 23' swath of centipede grass which makes a good step out of your car area/ step off the long sidewalk to the front door.
This has also been a year of judicious tree trimming and pinetree removal.
The front yard growth is three tiered with maybe 50 year old oaks and maples, a mid tier of white dogwoods and a lower tier of old tall azaleas and Carolina rhododendrons.

From that swath of grass in the dappled sun runs a curvy diagonal mossy/grass area through the trees to the opposite side up to the roadway.

It's this mossy grass area and the natural beds I think I want to do a better job defining, although not with formal hedging but with focal plants to draw the eye.

It think in front yards you do want a gathering area for people arriving/leaving the house.
Sometimes a lawn or patio serves that purpose.

I set up my computer/office in the front bedroom and from those windows I can see my mailbox/who is walking down the street and who is entering my driveway.

I think you have to take your time and look at your yard from different viewpoints both within and outside the house. You consider the flow and speed of traffic when considering what to plant where to catch people's admiration and enjoyment.

I'd really like to pull out the foundation plantings across the front of my house because they are very fast growing and require too much trimming.
I'd like to pull out this triple row of azaleas between my living room windows and the sidewalk.
I think my neighbors would be disappointed though.
The long blooming flash of pink,rose and white azaleas have been there probably 20 years.
It's just they are scraggly when not blooming and leaf catchers in the fall/winter.
Gonna take some thought. Perhaps a reduction in the number of azaleas, intersperced with pedestaled planters might be more interesting.

I miss my chasteberry trees but I don't miss the carpenter bees. Without them, the bumblebees of all sizes have done a super job pollinating my veggie garden.
I plan to plant some young chasteberries in the far rear open part of the back forest near the stream.
Perhaps their attending carpenter bees will turn their attention to other properties.
I bought the wooded lot next to me and that broadens the rear open/sunny area for chasteberry trees. Might try to find a pink. Might also pop the beach vitex back there to run at will.
That thing, 4 years or more in its planting pot has been sitting in my wheelbarrow at the other house this past year..barrow FULL of water.
Ya caint kill a beach vitex by drought or drowning!!
Back to the front yard..I'm planning for more blueberry shrubs. Marvelous fall color. Expect to use iceplant for some fuchsia color punch to grab the eye of drivebys and some (goatsbeard?)(fountain type bush with blue flowers) and definitely beautyberry bushes.
Over at the other house the white beautyberry is fully berried now, a real standout. They'll probably go in the front natural area closest to the street underplanted with iceplant and mid planted with tall daylilies here and there.
It's a job and a half to keep the potted up and moved plants watered.
Oh, not to forget..peonies. Great deer resistant plants that die back in winter and come up fresh and lush in spring. Dense green with beautiful foliage even when not blooming. *oops, wrote a 'book' again..sorry.

Dottie,
You aren't writing a book, I enjoy hearing about your garden, I actually envision everything you are writing about.
We have over an acre of woods outback, and I mean woods.
We have wild blueberries, hundreds of them, but we can't eat them, they are sour. The animals and birds like them though.
I am done with my front. If the pittosporum ever reach a decent height, I am going to shape them like mushrooms.
I would love to cut some trees down out back someday to plant some dogwoods, I love the dogwoods in the spring.
You are smart waiting to see what you want to do with the front of your house though.
You have mature trees, I am sooo jealous. Nothing was planted around this house when we moved in.
THen on the other hand, our gardens change with us anyway, don't they?
I have been thinking of planting some beets soon, I love red beets. The veggies are exhausted and I only have a small raised bed anyway, so beets and lettuce for the fall.
I have never had peonies, but they sound like a nice plant to put out front.
Can't wait til fall this year, so tired of the heat.
Fall can't come soon enough for me, but at least we have been getting a little rain.
Suppose to rain for the next 6 days straight, better plant the beet seeds now...

Here in the south Charlotte area the rainfall this growing season has been regular and abundant.
I feel very lucky that the site for my little veg garden is extremely well draining because it gets a veritable waterfall of water off the porch roof and it floods but only briefly.
Hurricane Isaac seems to have hauled up a great deal of moisture from the Gulf, a couple of thunders but no real wind disturbance thank goodness. It has rained all day (off and on) today.
Hope I'm not too late to start a raised bed of spinach.
The farmers markets provide me beets and beet greens which are easy to wash,chop and freeze to add much vitamins to soups.

Best of luck with the dogwoods. I got lucky with this yard having huge mature ones and I guess the birds have dropped the seeds so the back forest near the stream also has a grove of dogwoods. They are pretty and their structure is so pretty also.

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