Front Garden Project

We moved into our house about 8 years ago and spent some time on the back garden but left the front as it was. It was covered in weed fabric with stones on top. A stone paving circle was centered in the middle with some sort of weeping type tree planted in the centre.
Down the left (as you look @ the house) was a row of conifers.

Last year, after a few debates about the front, I took the chainsaw to the firs and bagged up all the stones.

With a new baby on the way, suddenly work on the house took president over the garden, so it was left with a few tree stumps and mud piles until April this year.

Removing the stumps took some work, but as they were dead and rotting, wasn't as big a headache as I first envisaged.

Some of the earth was removed, along with all the weeds, and then I dug in some manure, compost and top soil. I've been quite successful with growing plants in my little lean-too greenhouse this year, so a lot of the planting in the front has come from there. Plus a few choice purchases with some birthday money!

Here's a couple of post-stump, pre-full dig over photos :-




And here's a couple about 2 weeks after laying the lawn and planting the front and back borders. The side border was planted about 2 weeks prior to the lawn.






Planting includes :-

Side border - Sunflowers (Mixed), Snowball corn flowers, Calendula(mixed), burgundy poppies, Cosmos,mixed sweet peas around the tee-pee.

Back border - Echinacea(Tomato Soup), Astilbe, Japanese Burnet, mini-Dahlia, chrysanthemum, salvia, couple of others which escape me @ the moment.

Front border - burgundy poppies, cosmos, dwarf sunflowers, salvia (red), coreopsis, phlox, calendula.

So far I'm pleased with how it looks, looking forward to seeing everything in bloom. Plus the troughs that I built, a few years ago, seem to coming into their own now, especially the dicentra in the centre.

It's been a good little project for me, I've learnt a fair bit, with what I've grown this year, and I just hope the lawn and perenials keep on keeping on.:yess:

 

That looks great......alot of hard work, as you said, but the end result is beautiful......well done!!

 

Much more inviting.

 

Looks fantastic...a really thorough job, and a nice little area to experiment with over time too

And I am always partial to Cosmos .... ... have you looked at dwarf cosmos too? Just a thought.

 

Thanks, and no I haven't. But I will now!
Can you recommend any in particular?