Hi you guys,

Well, I am so excited - this weekend was what I've been waiting for all spring and summer. We bought a new house in December, and I've been sketching and googling plants for nine months now. :) I just returned from a brief vacation - I have spent the last five days in the yard, working on the new foundation planting and a couple of new beds. My arms are killing me, but it is going to be SO much fun to come home tonight and see it!

I thought I might bore you all with some pictures, if you don't mind. I am just giddy about this and itching to share with someone who will understand how exciting this is! LOL!

It was really exciting to be able to start completely from scratch. We did the landscape at the old house one or two bushes at a time. It was so cool to have everything taken out all at once, and have a clean, blank slate!

So, here's the house when we bought it. All the shrubs were 20 years old, and most of them were entirely too large for where they were planted. We had a landscaping crew come Friday morning and rip everything out, except for three shrubs: Two boxwoods and a crape myrtle.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v329/kev-dog1/5609TrousdaleExisting.jpg[/IMG]

Here are the two Boxwoods that got to stay. The one on the right was left in place, and the one on the left came to join it from a few feet up the sidewalk:

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v329/kev-dog1/Boxwoods.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the other side of that bed. The original bed sloped towards the driveway, so my Mom (who came over to help every day), suggested that we put "a couple of rocks" there to hold the dirt. Well, you know how that goes - next thing you know a "couple of rocks" became a rock wall:

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v329/kev-dog1/RockWall.jpg[/IMG]

Here's a little grouping along the sidewalk bed. I only have five feet of width, and I wanted a layered look in at least some places, so Sky Pencil Hollies were a good addition I think. I have Goldenrod in front of them, which looks so pretty with the White Swan Coneflower to the left. Behind the Coneflower is a Miscanthus Graziella. It's tiny now, but I cannot wait for it to reach its full size! It's right in front of our kitchen window. Those plumes will be so pretty to see out the window, I think!

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v329/kev-dog1/SkyPencils.jpg[/IMG]

Another little grouping. Two Little Rascal Hollies in front, and behind on either side of the window, two Greenspire Euonymous. I haven't seen these before, but fell in love with them. The Greenspire are VERY resilient - I bought them in June and dug them in. You know how little water we got, and I am not the best about remembering to do that. They didn't miss a beat. The LRs were a little fussier. I had three, and lost one. :(

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v329/kev-dog1/Angelonia.jpg[/IMG]

By the front door, a Black Dragon Cryptomeria. I just ran out and bought this on Saturday, after thinking about it and deciding I couldn't live without it. :)

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v329/kev-dog1/BlackDragon.jpg[/IMG]

Here's the left side of the house - the Black Dragon, and in front of the window is a Nishiki Willow. Not much variegation right now...I'm hoping that's because it's young. My sister has one of these and I have been having a fit for one ever since I saw hers. Their new foilage is almost pure white, with flecks of pink and green.

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v329/kev-dog1/LeftBedAfter.jpg[/IMG]

Oh! It's also worth mentioning that this was my first attempt at trenching edges. I LOVE the look, but we had done rock around our other beds, and just never redid them. I was always afraid it would be super-difficult, but it was not that bad at all. I put the sprinkler out a couple of hours before, and it really didn't take long at all to dig the edges. The best thing will be that it's not a big deal at all to enlarge your bed whenever you want :)

These are the two new beds I did in the yard. I enlarged a small bed around the oak, and put some hostas that came with the house underneath. I've got daffodils coming for under there too. The mailbox bed is new from a couple of weeks ago. As I was doing the oak bed, I thought it would be neat to expand the mailbox bed too, and have the shapes relate to each other and form a visual path. I am so happy with the way it turned out!

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v329/kev-dog1/MailboxOakBed.jpg[/IMG]

Another angle. The only flaw in my plan, I realized this morning, is that the Japanese Maple in the mailbox bed will eventually obscure the "path." Oops! Oh well, that won't be for many years, and I will probably be ready to change it all by then anyway. :p

[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v329/kev-dog1/MailboxOakBed2.jpg[/IMG]

Thanks for looking if you've come this far! :D