Before/ After : New Curb Appeal Garden

Hello everyone, and greetings spring!

It's finally here and I am so super excited!

Everything is finally in bloom and is so beautiful!

It was such a long, long loooong winter.

But now that it has warmed up
we were FINALLY able to finish our garden out front.

It was a long process, but we are so happy with it now!

LET ME START WITH A BEFORE PIC..... 

showing our overgrown smoke bushes -

 which (truth be told) we rather liked...

but they very quickly got out of control!

And when we had to heavily prune them

it left the huge cut branches really ugly...
especially from behind them next to the foundation.

I saw them every day when in my home office,

-where one may usually find me-

or at the window in front of my piano... 

I'd sit there and just cringe and wish and hope and wait

 for the day those old and very sad bushes

were no longer part of our garden design!

You can see what we had was just dated, overgrown,
nondescript  foundation garden plots
which were covering up the windows!

Just noticed this really is a "before" because it also shows

our old door and side window panels!

~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~

And now the reveal: TA-DA!!!!! 

Here is our AFTER!
 Every thing all nice and pretty!

It will take a while for things to settle down
and a few things will bloom - hopefully-
which will make it all much prettier eventually.

Since this pic was taken 2 days ago we moved
a few things around to balance better.

We planted 3 big limelight hydrangea (left),
one gorgeous Weeping Lace Leaf Japanese Maple (right)
3 boxwoods (left)- forget real name but kind that get tall
2 Holly Sky Pencils (both sides)
10 Heuchera Purples (both sides)
14 Big Blue Liriope (both sides)
and one Red Twig Dogwood (right)

Our home finally has a bit more curb appeal.

A couple years ago we planted this mailbox garden.

That's our wee red Mini Cooper in the background.
It's been leaking oil lately - 
so it's banished from the driveway or garage for now.

This is what Lime Light Hydrangea looks like when mature:

It's fun to compare before/after pics.

Those orange things are where I wanted the stones to go.

We shortened both gardens quite a bit
 to make them less weedy and needy.

On the right there's now a nice patch of sod grass
 between walkway and garden.

On left we designed an angle for the natural stone wall.

We are always limited to what we can plant due to all the deer.

The bunnies love the liriope though, so keeping fingers crossed.
I sprinkled red pepper flakes around to keep them at bay.


On the side of the house our Bleeding Heart is still thriving.

A HUGE THANKS TO:



*Sharyn for her awesome landscape designs.

*Andrew for all the intense laborous work,
especially for the fabulous stone walls!

And a HUGE thanks to my wonderful
 hardworking, handsome, awesome husband
 who worked long exhausting hours prepping everything,
 and working right beside Andrew
 lifting and planting and mulching and perspiring
on planting day and earlier 
to help make this dream come true.

Also - a big thanks to YOU for your visit!



If you're ever in the Columbus, Ohio area
I would be delighted to welcome you in for tea.

♥

~Michele

Linking:

Metamorphosis Monday   *   Make it Pretty Monday   *   

Inspire me Tuesday   *  At Our Home   *   Style Showcase   *

Home and Garden Thursday