Flower Beds in Progress

Bear with me, friends, as I share one of my "I'm such a grown up" joys. You know you've arrived to adulthood when the addition of plants and flowers to your yard makes you real excited!

So, let's talk about The Joneses' front yard:

Okay, okay, so I'm sure this post is quite boring for most of my readers (except for mom!), but this blog is partly for Keith and I to document our adventures as a couple. So, the occasionally blog post about our flower beds is necessary :)

(lookin' good, house!)

Let's start from the beginning. 

Well, it's not really the beginning. I could post photos of our front yard before grass, or before we had any plants in the flower beds way back when we moved in in August of 08. But, let's start from the state it was in after our builder had finished and the yard was basically left up to us to 'decorate.'

This is what we had:

Flower bed between porch and pathway with some basics shrubs and a crepe myrtle, and flower bed on right side under the window. Right side was totally empty.

So, about a month ago, we decided it was time to spruce up our little beds.

We bought 3 hydrangeas to go between the porch and the house, in a very shady spot that isn't really seen until you're on our front porch. We were hoping the hydrangeas would get big and beautiful back there!

We were excited.

Keith successfully planted the first two, but when it came time for number 3, he kept hitting debris with his shovel.

Ended up being almost a whole bag of roofing shingles.

Word to the wise, if you have a new house, dig deep in your flower beds. Construction sites are messy and things just get thrown around!! That plant would have never grown if Keith hadn't dug all that junk up. Hard work for one little plant!

We also planted other items that day:

4 hostas in the front

A new crepe myrtle for the right side, 3 azaleas, and some pretty little ground cover.

Our first day of work improved things, for sure. Our white azaleas bloomed recently and were really pretty! But, we wanted more color and some pretty flowers!

So, this weekend, I planted a bunch of colorful things:

Red Salvia and Impatients

Purple Salvia plants

Red is my favorite color.
Ever.

This little bit has given the flower beds a good boost.

And our hydrangeas are starting to get full and begin to bloom. Yippeeee!

And because I like to see results, here's a look at the the before, during and after:

Front Left

Front Right

Pretty good improvements, huh!? Now, as a last step, we gotta get some mulch in there! My only request is that we get the kind that does NOT smell like a horse's rear. Please, and thank you.