Landscaping

As moms are wont to do, mine came to the rescue with some June well-head garden area pictures!  So I can finally get this post up.  Thanks, mom!

We are starting on the south side of the house and making our way north. The south side is a line of day lilles that Corey's mom planted!  I have not done a good job of keeping the weeds at bay here, here's one back from June:

And then you turn the corner to the front of the house and there's just some nice looking mulch.  Hopefully next year I'll get something planted there:

And next to that area is this nice nook with a perrenial plant that I've forgotten the name of and some begonias in front of them:

Fun fact: Corey's mom planted these still in the container so that I could take them out when the new windows were installed:

And under he porch there's a nice line of hostas:

And now is what I like to call the "well-head bed" because right before we bought the house last year a new well was put in and the dirt was a big turned up mess in front all around the head.  So I thought instead of planting more grass (we have plenty to mow already and my plan is to have less and less to mow each year) it could be turned into a nice flower bed. 

There are roses, azaleas, a hydrangea, zinnias, petunias, peonies, begonias, and many others that I can't remember what they are.

This was a huge project and I kept wanting to work on it with my mom because I love planting flowers, but I kept being pulled away to other projects and my mom pretty much did it all! Here she is working:

This is how we found out how much clay is in our soil. Since the turned up dirt in this area was from tens of feet down in the earth (from digging the well) there were actual big hunks of clay my mom found! She worked on this area so much to get drainage going and give the plants a good start.  Here is a car-filled shot because this was an all-hands on deck day very close to the wedding:

And here are the more flower focused shots my mom took before she put in the stone path!

See the well head? It has a green top. My mom ended up putting another pot there to block it more.

Here are some end of season shots:

I love those pink knockout roses!

The pink pots died recently because I've been away a lot lately and couldn't keep up with watering.  The hydrangea didn't bloom again. And the yellow roses faltered. They're not knockout roses and I am not a dedicated enough gardener to be on top of them fertilizer-wise.  I am looking forward to peony blooms next June! And hopefully the 3 azaleas will bloom next summer.

Across from the well-head/under the kitchen windows there were some narcissus bulbs along the sidewalk that I planted last fall. And there are some gladiola bulbs (still blooming!) my mom planted at the corner of the sidewalk & driveway that took a long time to come up, but were a bunch of fun when they did.  I want to plant them again for sure (apparently the bulbs don't winter well here). They were a mixed color batch so it was fun to see what colors they were as each one opened. Plus they're gorgeous:

Along the north side of the house there are more hostas and again I failed at (not pictured) weeding/degrassing over here:

And here is our wonderful arbor vitae living fence!

This delineates the border between us and the very-close-for-the-country-neighbors.  Corey's dad picked up all 20 at Home Depot for us in his truck.

We could not have done this without him (he also got all the mulch for us)!  He even bought them for us as well. We are so very lucky.  It doesn't even end there because he also planted them for us with two of his sons. We are sooooo lucky!  He might kill me for saying that I think next year I want to plant 20 more...

And shooting all the way over to the south side again we have the arbor:

Isn't it beautiful?  Our dads put it together and Corey's mom & brother stained it.  And my mom adorned it with flowers. There are 2 bridal veils (an appropriate plant seeing as we got married there!) and clematis planted on each side of it that will hopefully flourish year after year.  None of those plants were ready to bloom yet and so my mom put up those beautiful impatiens hanging bags and some window boxes on the rails.

This was such a family effort. I didn't even plant anything and Corey just planted the food garden.  So all these flowers & bushes are courtesy of the blood, sweat, and tears of our parents and brothers.

I am pretty sure we spent more on wedding flowers than most people, but ours lasted a whole summer and many will come back next year!  Home weddings do have some pay-off for all their work :)

Next year Corey & I will have to pull our own weight in the garden!