My new home:

After being 'stuck' inside doing house moving stuff for a month, we finally got to move out to the yard last weekend. I didn't get before pictures, but there really wasn't much there. Just an old sunken oval bed in the front that did contain some nice sized hosta.

We brought in 13 cubic yards of topsoil and built up the area next to the foundation on the front (north) and side (west) of the house. We decided to go ahead and build this a little higher then needed for good drainage in order to be able to display the gardens better. We also decided to build up and reshape the area where the original sunken bed had been in the front yard.

First we had to move rocks. There had been a border on the old oval bed and also around the house, although there really wasn't too much planted there. We did salvage some nice lupines and some ajuga and also what looked like daylilies (probably stella d'oro) but had no flowers. Not surprising as they were planted in a pretty well shaded area. Oh, and the big hosta(s) from the front bed as well. We dug HUGE clumps of dirt and it took both of us to lift them out of the ground and set them to the side. It worked great though! Once back in place in the new raised bed, they look like they've always been there!

Then came the dirt. Since we didn't have a packer, it took a lot of stompin' to get it all in place.

Then the fun part... designing and planting!

The bed around the front of the house is hosta and bleeding hearts (that's where the flowerbed name 'Hostas and Hearts' came from). If you're interested in any particular hostas in this bed, let me know and I'll name them for you.

The oval bed in the middle of the front yard contains the original four hosta that were growing there (unidentified), a couple of hosta seedlings that were also there, and WILL contain the other hosta whose nametags have been lost due to moving twice and tags that didn't hold up over the winter :-( Some of them will probably be identified once I figure out 'who' is missing from my list of hosta that I moved from Owatonna to Rochester last fall and then from Rochester to Michigan this spring (although I didn't lose any tags on that last move). In the meantime, they're going here in my 'Bed of the Unknown Hosta'.

Here are the photos of the front beds:

One showing the side of the front steps... we're moving into a more sunny area here and have put in a climbing rose, perennials baby's breath, and have yet to plant the pots of statice and pincushion flowers.

These next photos are the east side yard. Full morning sun, which is about as good as it gets for sun in our yard. This area will be a rosebed. In the meantime it's the 'holding area' for all of the plants that aren't planted yet:

And then a bit of the back (actually side) door steps and the garage area. We probably won't do a lot of planting in this area because we normally park the 4-Wheelers in here. Maybe we'll have a potted (not pot, potted) garden in here :-)

And these two, just because I think they're cool. A couple of fossil rocks that we picked up out of the old sunken bed in the front yard:

As you can see, very much a work in progress, but not too bad for one weekend's work!

And if I didn't mention, the new place is in Michigan UP, way up north on the Keweenaw penninsula.