Wish List of Plants

When you want to grow a garden, you work with the space you have and plant a diversity of species accordingly.

All shady gardens are not created equal. The density and duration of light vs. darkness influence what kinds of plants can grow in a given place.

So this is a fancy way of saying I can't necessarily grow what I want in the garden, but if I work with what will grow I can have the garden I want.

I am already a big fan of hosta and fern, and have planted a number of them around the cement girl. There is also ivy planted as a ground cover and azalea planted in the wooded bed behind the cement girl and before the road.



I am thinking of adding foxglove- the tall spires have a cottage, old fashioned look. Foxgloves are bi-annuals, so it will be the second year before they flower, but they seed freely so once established I should have a nice bed.





Lily of the Valley prefers dappled shade, grows well under trees, smells like the oil I wore as a child, and promotes peace and harmony.

Torenia, sometimes called wishbone flower, is a charming annual with beautiful trumpet-shaped blooms and comes in a dark blue/purple that attracts hummingbirds.

 

 

 

Atilbe is a rugged and beautiful genus of shade lovering perennial that throw colorful spikes above divided foliage. The foliage is similar to fern, and the flowers are airy and delicate looking, and make good cut flowers.  

This wish list of plants is only the beginning. My garden will be slowing traffic by next fall.

Walkway

The course I am taking at UA and this blog are really helping me to make decisions about our front garden. Breaking the whole front into sections makes it seem manageable, and writing on here, placing sticky notes in gardening books  and pinnig pics to Pinterest has helped me match budget and dream.

One area that we are ready to move forward on is the walkway. Right now when arriving at our home a visitor must squeeze between all of our cars/boats/4-wheeler trailer to get to a short walkway next to the house connecting the driveway to the courtyard. You know, builder basic.

When we began the planning we had no real plans, just a vision of a path to the courtyard. We also had no firm budget or idea of the costs of things.

Mister wanted something made of stone, with moss growing in the cracks and a rustic and natural look.

 

 

Beautilful. Just beautiful. And very expensive. Out of our budget - our walkway would be much longer than the one shown, and of course we would want to have other large rocks laying about like in the picture. 

Then we thought about pea-gravel. It is affordable, easy to maintain, and attractive. We visited a friend who has gravel paths throughout her garden. We sat in her garden and pondered....

What the pea-gravel needed was some large rocks to make it more wow. We ruled that out because what we were really saying was we liked rocks better than gravel- but our budget didn't.

Next we thought about paving the walkway. It would lead to easy access to our courtyard and blend with the driveway. We actually like the idea of a paved walkway. With rocks.

We couldn't get away from rocks. It is more than fatuation...it is love.

Check out what our future walkway will resemble:

 

 



The slope goes downhill from our driveway to our courtyard and front door. We are going to have the flat areas paved with concrete and use rocks at the steps like in the photo above. Love it!

We plan to use the same rocks as used in the steps as a retaining wall/barrier in front of the cement girl. So excited that our front garden is coming together. I know there is nothing to show for it, but we have made a decision!

You may recall I was concerned about wheelchair access to the courtyard. We plan to widen the builder walkway next to the house so that family in wheelchairs can bypass the steps but still enter through the front door. Of course, if one wants to brave the garage that is a no step entry to our home.

I have called a three people to come out and give us quotes on doing the walkway and I have to submit a plan of the walkway to our neighborhood POA, but it feels as if we are on our way to our dream garden.

SWOT and the Weeping Holly

A good way to form a plan is to conduct a SWOT analysis. This is as true of your landscape as it is of your career. A few weeks ago I started the SWOT analysis on my garden. As it would happen, I wrote about the last two items first, making it a TOWS analysis.

Today I am sharing the second half of my analysis, the weaknesses and strengths of my garden, and I have to admit that this portion is much harder to figure out.

Weaknesses of my Garden:

I am not positive on what qualifies as a weakness in the garden, but I think poor soil quality would. We had our soil tested earlier this season and it is slightly acidic (not too bad, we do have lots of pine trees) and hasn't been tilled or amended in ages...possibly ever.

picture of soil here

Another possible weakness is that we are downhill from the road, so we have to plan carefully so that we don't create standing water or lead a creek to our front door.

Strengths of my Garden:

The strengths may be something that only we can see, like a parent seeing the potential in their child. One strenght is the large established trees- they provide shade throughout the summer, give our garden an extablished look, and provide a buffer between us and the road.

pic of trees here

Another strength is the smallness of our garden area- because we are furnishing a small space we can spend more on plants and shrubs that we really love, it won't take as many to fill the garden.

With the established trees on the North side, the house on the South side, driveway and walkway to the East and property line at the West- the future lawn is about the size of a large bedroom, the courtyard is the size of a small bedroom, and the swing area is the size of a foyer. Very easy to work- especially since I have learned to view each of these areas as seperate areas for planning instead of just a vague area "out front."

pics of future lawn area here

 

Courtyard as approached from walkway

 

 

Swing area from inside courtyard

 

No smooth segue, but in other news-
We have added a Weeping Holly to the corner of our house, near the swing. The name is really gross, but the description is hauntingly appealing.

Ilex vomitoria, Weeping Youpon Holly, makes a distinct, irregular, weeping form with its upright crooked trunks and slender, curved pendulous branches.

pic of weeping holly here

The weeping holly is evergreen and has red berries on it. I am already picturing blue birds coming to the garden this winter. We want to plant low shrubs under the double window on the front of hte house, so I measured out their future spots before planting the holly.

Lots of plans...lots of dreams...

Happy Halloween

 

Statuary can give a garden a sense of whimsey. This rat is in the garden at the Birmingham Museaum of Art, stands about 3 feet tall, and is realistically carved with fur, whiskers, and twitchy nose.

 

 

 

 

This blog is about gardens: gardens I tour and the garden I create. Earlier this month I toured the garden at the Birmingham Museaum of Art. I am sure it is a much admired garden, there may even be people who bring their lunch and sit in this garden to relax, but all I kept seeing was this giant rat.

The garden did have unity, a sense of belonging to itself (or to a big rat) and seemed to be laid out on a grid that reminded me of a rat's maze. There was an extremely large woman opposite the rat who matched it in proportion and scale.

Large potted plants provided repetition and sequence, and the pottery gave a bit of color to an otherwise all green garden. Variety was also provided by tree fern's soft frilly fronds in contrast to the stark white walls and huge dark rat.

Unfortunately, the only thing I took a picture of was this rat.

But really, he is all you see.

SWOT Analysis for my Landscape

According to our landscaping class, a gardener should perform a SWOT Analysis on their garden to assess their Strengths, Weaknesses (or limitations), Opportunities, and Threats

We have dealt with what was the main threat in our garden. Our home is on a third of an acre lot located on a busy main road. That means it isn't far for my dogs to run before they are in the road. When someone came to our door I couldn't get them to hurry inside so I could close the door and keep the dogs inside (this is the South; guests must first use a high pitched voice to greet their host, hug everybody's neck, compliment the garden WHILE the front door is open, and make a big show of wiping their feet before entering).

Our threat was the busy road so close to our front door.

We dealt with the threat of the busy road by putting a picket fence around a small area, creating a courtyard. Mission accomplished; threat killed, quaint courtyard born.

Actually, I may be stretching it a little. The courtyard is a work in process. But the threat of my dogs being run over has been handled.

 

Couryard (or dog-catcher), photo taken standing next to the cement girl

Since I accidentally started at the back of SWOT, I will continue in that direction and look at Opportunities next. That's right; I am doing a TOWS Analysis.

Our garden is part of a wooded area, our home is (maybe) a morph between a Tudor home and an English cottage. I love J.R.R. Tolkien. I can give my garden hints of hte 'Shire. That is what I call an Opportunity with a capital O!

The Hobbit

Actually, I do still love the enclosed gardens of Charleston and Savannah; and am not deserting that plan for my courtyard. I am just firming up the over-all plan for our front garden. Most people, when entering my home, comment on the wall to wall, floor to ceiling bookshelves. I think what I mean is that I have the opportunity to create a garden of whimsy, a garden for dreaming, a storybook garden.

Different Ways to Enjoy Flowers

In the last seven days I have done no gardening.

I have driven hundreds of miles to look at gardens, touring everything from the stunningly impressive Birmingham Botanical Gardens...

 

This picture was taken at Birmingham Botanical Gardens, from the belvedere looking into the Hill Garden

 

 

To a tiny jewel of a city garden in downtown Tuscaloosa...

 

 

This garden should be named "Little Alters Everywhere." It was an artistic blending of plants, hardscapes, and knick-knacks...a labour of love.



 

 

Then drove from Tuscaloosa to Atlanta to work a convention of a respectable and awe inspiring organization, where I spent the next three days in the basement of a high rise hotel, looking at floral carpet...

 

When there are no windows, floral carpet can be the next best thing to a garden.

 

I worked 45 hours in three days and was absolutely exhausted when I came home to the best kind of flowers...

 

 

Flowers on my library table!

 

I crashed for 10 hours and awoke fevered and dizzy. Apparently bacteria is flowering inside of me. The doc prescribed Biaxin and rest.

 

Look for a real post addressing view, axis, scope, and other important elements of garden design. Seriously, I took plenty of notes on the tour.

 

Ciao!



 

 

 

 

 



 





A Patch of Green

We have gone back and forth on whether to put on what to put down for a patch of green in front of our home. We discussed the no-mow alternative of Dwarf Mondo Grass; the traditional grass lawn; and one night at the Donkey, fueled by tequila, we tossed around the pros and cons of artificial turf (or indoor-outdoor carpet as we were referring to it that evening).

 

 

The Lazy Donkey in Carrollton. No swag involved, just admiring their grass...

 

About the Lazy Donkey; everyone from toddlers held up on his back by their mothers to margarita drinking mid-lifers jumping on his back as they leave the establishment, the donkey and his artificial turf see a lot of action. The owners tried to grow grass out front, it would look great for a few weeks but nothing they tried could stand up to the heavy traffic. Then they put in artificial turf and it looks great. Really great. People keep squatting down to touch the turf to see if it is real. But we decided we just aren’t that type of gardener.

Mister didn’t love the idea of Dwarf Mondo grass but said that if I loved it we would plant it. I don’t love it as much as I love the idea of not mowing, but he pointed out to me that I would have to pull weeds and rake. On thinking it over I decided I might as well mow.

So that brings us to our current plan for a patch of green. No surprise, no wow factor, just regular old grass.

Found this pic on the web

I reached out to our local Master Gardener’s organization for advice on what grass to grow. They gave me a bit of a quiz about the sun exposure and they tested the soil. Our future patch of green gets 4 hours of direct sun a day (more in winter) and is enclosed by pine trees on the north, walkway on the east, house on the south, and trees/neighbor’s house on the west. Our soil tested acidic at 5.4pH.

The Master Gardener recommended a tall fescue blend for our patch of green. Fescue prefers soil to be 5.5 to 6.5pH, will grow with our amount of sun, and is (I am told) easy to seed.

Instructions for establishment:

Incorporate 15 pounds of 10-10-10 per 1000 square feet into the top 4-6 inches of soil prior to seeding. In November and February, apply 3 pounds of 34-0-0 per 1000 square feet. Follow this program for the first year, and then use the maintenance recommendations.

Instructions for maintenance:

Apply 8 pounds of 10-10-10 per 1000 square feet in September. In November and February apply 9 pounds of 16-4-8 per 1000 square feet. In May, apply 1.5 pounds of 34-0-0 per 1000 square feet.

You remember that cranky old lady from your childhood, the one that watched from her front window and stomped out the front door if you got too close to her lawn? Yea, that will be me soon...

 

Picture from webiste "I Can Has Cheezburger?"

Creating a View

I have been reading P. Allen Smith’s Garden Home. Allen recommends taking a picture of your garden area because when a person is used to looking at an area their eye (or brain) will ignore what it doesn’t want to see and focus on what it does want to see.

When I read that I had an “oh yea, you’re talking to me” moment. You see, when I took the picture of my cement girl for this project I had to creatively edit the pic so that I didn’t post a picture of my neighbor’s garbage cans to the web.

That’s right, when you stroll down my walkway toward my courtyard, you can judge the neighbor’s beer and soda consumption and ponder the toxicity of aluminum cans. 

Disclaimer: This is a not my neighbor’s garbage can, they are lovely people and I wouldn’t embarrass them that way. Also, they picked everything up when I told them about this posting. And in the spirit of truth; we have a huge pile of aluminum cans, a large trash can, a canoe, a wood pile, and a garden wagon on the “service” side of our house.

Not my yard! I found this picture on the web and thought it made a point of what I don't want to see.

So back to my point, P. Allen Smith says you should create a view, a pleasing reason for the eye to rest; just because I am blind the neighbor’s service yard doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.

That was the problem that P. Allen Smith made me aware of. My solution: A swing near the edge of our yard and a hedge behind it will continue the look of our courtyard and help to create the feeling of an enclosed garden.

This view is from our walkway. The cement girl is to the right of the picture, our house is to the left of the picture, and the maple bed is immediately behind me. The pinestraw in the center of the photo will be lawn one day. 

This is the view of our swing from the courtyard. Until there is a tall hedge behind the swing the eye doesn't really stop but continues on to the neighbor's side yard (he usually has trash cans, aluminum cans, and sometimes a bass boat there).

The swing was white so I spray painted it oil rubbed bronze to go continue the courtyard theme of my garden. Not having a lawn is awesome while spray painting-notice the paint in the lower section of the photo.

The garden center had many shrubs to choose from, but I haven’t yet made a decision on the type of hedge. I want something evergreen, and Mister wants something that blooms occasionally.

We are considering a burgundy leaved Fringe Flower (lorapetalum).

This was at the garden center, the photo-bomber is the nursery dog.

I feel that the Fringe Flower would play well behind the black swing and the burgundy of the leaves would connect to the blue/red bricks of our house. Also, we could use a large variety behind the swing and then use a small variety on either side of the driveway by the road, thereby tying the entrance to the drive to the side of the garden and the brick of the home. To paraphrase P. Allen Smith, it will complete the flow of the garden home.

Here is a final photo of the swing with our dog Boo waiting for someone to come sit with him.

 

Triple Creek Flower Farm

 

 



Our gardening community experienced a big loss this week. A very popular local nursery, a destination garden center, sent out the following email blast Saturday.

“It's with almost unbearable sorrow that I am sending this message. On Saturday morning we lost our son, John Rowley. Most of you knew him or had heard us talk about him, and how he grew the plants and managed Triple Creek Flower Farm. Visitation will be today, Tuesday, September 25th, from 4:00 pm. until 8:00 p.m. at the Martin-Hightower Funeral Home on Highway 27 in Carrollton, Georgia. Funeral services will be onWednesday at 4:00 p.m. at the funeral home. Please visit http://www.martin-hightower.com/ for more information.

Please keep us in your prayers.”

Winkey and Pat Brinson

 

Located on 13 acres in Douglas County, GA, Triple Creek Flower Farm is the “go-to” nursery for our neighborhood.

Triple Creek’s planted gardens illustrate how plants will grow in the shopper’s garden. The areas of sun and shade gardens, the quiet walking paths and picnic area provide an enjoyable and comfortable setting for gardeners to contemplate additions to their own gardens.

John, along with Winkey, do all of the plant production, sales, and delivery, sharing their knowledge and love of gardening to all who enter. John’s mom Pat handles the office duties of ordering and accounting.

John will be greatly missed; he was an inspiration and a friend to us gardeners. In many ways the beautiful yards and Gardens in Fairfield Plantation will always be a memorial to John Rowley.

 

Highlands, North Carolina

I just returned from a work retreat in Highlands, NC. Highlands is located in one of only two rain forests in the United States (the other one being in Oregon). The entire landscape of the town and surrounding area was lush and green. It wasn’t just nature gone wild, though, the town of Highlands is beautifully landscaped loosely based on English garden ideas and using many native plants.

 

This was a sweet rock fountain in a natural-ish area of a garden. 

The house we stayed in was surrounded by manicured lawns, rock walls, evergreen trees, and boxwood pruned into rounded balls. It gave the garden the feeling of being enclosed. A couple of my co-workers mentioned that the garden would make a nice place for a reception.

 

Isn't this lawn gorgeous?Understated and classy. I think I could play croquet out here.

 

 

I really like the rock garden border. I may want to do a border of this type in front of my cement girl.

 

 

Don't you want to explore this secret garden?

 

 

 My bedroom had a copy of the book The Gardens at Kew written by Allan Paterson and photographed by Andrew McRobb. A superbly illustrated book published to celebrate Kew’s 250^th anniversary. I had not time for serious reading, but each evening before going to sleep I would leaf through admiring the luxurious photos. And dream.

The Cement Girl

I added a garden to the front area. It doesn't look like much in person (or on film, to tell the truth) but in my mind it is lush, beautiful, and a little mysterious.

I may be over-selling the garden...

The first time I shared pictures of my front garden you were looking at a drab brown area. You can refresh your memory here http://chichi-notes.blogspot.com/2011/08/introduction.html, or just scroll down. Anyway, The area to the right in the picture is what a person looks at while sitting in the courtyard, where I like to drink my coffee. The no-mow discussions are still going on here so I decided to do something about the area that will be behind the lawn. My dream is to have some permanent greenery directly in front of the lounge window with a low maintenance garden facing our home, giving the impression of enclosure like in the gardens in Charleston and Savannah.

We are working on adding all of the things that will give a garden the Charleston feel. Courtyard...check; Iron furniture...check; walkway...working on it; cement girl...check.

 

I took this picture while standing in front of our double windows facing the street. The house is behind me, the driveway and walkway to the right of the picture and neighbor's house to the left of the picture.

 

 



Yep, we now have a cement girl, aka The Bird Girl of Savannah, in our front garden. She is placed to the right of the imaginary walkway as you approach the house and facing our courtyard. It is a very shady garden so she has hosta in front of her. I am not sure of the name of the hosta, they are from my grandmother's garden, a living memory. To the right of the cement girl are 3 Cinnamon Fern. Cinnamon Fern ( Osmunda cinnamomea) prefer moist shady habitats and grow 2 to 3 foot tall.

To the left of the cement girl, and so tiny they can't be seen until you almost step on them, are three Purple Tiers Hydrangea (Hydrangea s. ’Miyama yae Murasaki’). It will have wonderful deep purple lacecap flowers and will grow to about 3 foot high. I saw the plants in a garden center back in the summer and knew I wanted them somewhere in my garden.

Behind the ferns and hydrangea the area is filled (or it will be when the plants mature) with George Tabor Azalea (Rhododendron indica 'George Tabor') and English Ivy (Hedera helix). George Tabor Azalea grows to about 10 feet tall and 8 feet wide and blooms prolifically in the spring, covering itself with large pink and white flowers. The English Ivy is an evergreen plant that will fill in as a ground cover. In fact it should fill in so well that I will have to keep it clipped off of the tree trunks and azalea.

I didn't think about it until writing this, but I may have just created a smorgasbord for deer...

The No Mow Lawn

As I defensively say; our front lawn is not pretty. Seriously, there were a few straggly weeds growing in lonely islands when we moved in a few years ago and we decided that the place would look better if we removed the few green weeds and covered the whole muddy mess with pinestraw.

Our plan was to plant grass seed or lay sod in early spring...but time got away from us. Before we knew it the temperature was too high to work in the yard, Georgia was experiencing a draught, and our neighborhood had a watering ban. We congratulated one another on the wisdom of having pinestraw instead of expensive dead sod.

The next spring Mister was working crazy long hours, I was working days and attending college in evenings, and the drought was still holding strong. We decided it to refresh the pinestraw and call it good.

I am using our front garden as part of my project for this course- and it has really gotten me thinking about how nice it has been to not mow a lawn. We have the ubiquitus strip of grass between the azaleas and the street so Mister gets his bi-monthly fill of mowing. I am in charge of mowing our back garden; a mixture of grass and clover mixture that the dogs enjoy running through- clover doesn't get that tall so if I am not in the mood to mow it doesn't really matter to anyone but the chihuahua. She can be pretty vocal if the grass/clover gets too tall, but I can be pretty deaf to her if I have to.

All of this time of not mowing the pinestraw has spoiled me; I don't want to start mowing the front garden. I have been checking out no-mow lawn alternatives this week. Many of the homes in Atlanta have very little grass, the greenery is provided by groundcover such as ivy, liriope, or moss.

 

Dwarf mondo grass used in place of grass. Photo found on Walter Reeves' "Gardening in Georgia" website.

 

 

Another photo from Walter Reeves' "Gardening in Georgia."

 

 

I have also been looking at clips on HGTV's website of garden makeovers and what can be done without using grass. One clip that has the feel I like is Mondo Man, he does go too far for my taste (the reason I am looking at dwarf mondo grass is because I don't want to spend all that time tending to the lawn) but I like how he adapted his garden to what successfully grows well.

 

Ivy is another green alternative we are looking at, and one Mister likes better, so we will try to fill in the area under the large trees with it. A local garden center was having an end of summer sale and I picked up a flat of ivy to get things started. I would have picked up more but an ivy shopper beat me to the sale. I hope to get the ivy planted this upcoming weekend.

 

The descriptions don't sound like much, but I am actually starting to have a better idea of how I want the front garden to look...

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

Week Two in the Garden; or How to Flood your Courtyard

Over the weekend I used some blocks that were stacked in our yard to outline where the future walkway will be. I thought this would help me to see where the walkway ends and the future lawn will begin. It did just that, but it also showed me a design flaw.

 

If you look closely you can see the rut in the middle of the one-day walkway where water was rushing toward the house. Not good.

We have been receiving a lot of rain due to Hurricane Isaac. My house is downhill from the road and rainwater runs down our driveway toward the house. There is a drain installed near the Maple tree, one in front of the garage door, and another in the courtyard. These drains do an ok job of diverting water from our home- we haven't flooded yet and a good portion of our county flooded in 2009.

After I placed the blocks outlining my future walkway the rainwater is funneled toward the courtyard gate and pools in front of the courtyard. Really pools. I ran out into the rain yesterday to remove two of the blocks near the fence, and that allowed the water to keep flowing...seriously, with the blocks funneling water down the future walkway and then the opening near the fence I created a waterfall down the path and a small river flowing to the left in front of our lounge window!

We won't be keeping the blocks. But before this experiment one option up for consideration was to line the walkway with nice rocks and fill it in with pea gravel. Scratch that.

Now we are looking at placing large pavers to create stepping stones, or pave the area to match the driveway. Stepping stones would be nice and would keep a woodsy feel to our home, as if we lived in the 'Shire. On the other hand, paving would be low maintenance and if we one day needed to be motor to the front door in our power chair a walkway would accomodate that need. Not that I plan on being in a wheelchair but I am not blind to how many wheelchairs are used in my family.

 

Found this pic on the web today at examiner.com in a story about Bellvue Gardens. Of course, with our downhill slope I would be riding the brakes the whole way to the door.

I had mown the back garden before placing the blocks in my one-day walkway; and was thinking that one of the nice things about having a pine straw front garden is that I don't have to mow. I may look into some no-mow or low-mow options for our small front garden. We get about 4 hours of sunlight a day on that spot; I contacted the Master Gardeners of Carroll County and was told that with that our best bet will be Fescue grass. I think Fescue may be one of the grasses that turn brown in the winter. I may check and see if there is any type of low growing mondo or liriope that I could use also. I am really digging not mowing.

Today's entry seems to be more about things I am ruling out than what I am putting in- so to share everything I did do in the courtyard; I painted the front door blue, planted monkey grass (liriope big blue) around the interior perimeter of the courtyard, and picked up some cute wall art at Hobby Lobby that looks like outlines of topiaries. I think the art will give a nod to the Charleston/New Orleans feel I like and the monkey grass will add year round greenery. We also added a large pot in the corner to balance the blue door. Pictures are coming soon!

Introduction

 

The beginning of my garden blog: an introduction to me, my family, and our home.

 

 

 

Not the best picture of us, but a good example of the face I make when I think a terrier is going to put his tongue up my nose.

My name is Christina and I live with my husband and our two dogs in Fairfield Plantation. We have been in our home for a couple of years and have personalized the interior of our cozy nest, created a private retreat in our back garden, and totally neglected our front garden. I think it is time to show some love to our front garden and this blog will document my ideas, readings, field trips, and creative endevours toward creating a garden that suits our home and vision.

 

This is what the front of our home looks like right now. Mister installed the picket fence to help keep our dogs out of the road...in my mind it is a lovely courtyard; in real life we refer to it as the dog-catcher.

Mister and I spent a few days in St. Augustine, Florida earlier this week and were told we must go to Harry's to see the courtyard (and try the seafood, of course). OMGeee!! Exactly the mood I want to create. The flooring was neutral, there was black wrought iron tables and chairs, fairy lights overhead, and evergreen plantings around the parameters. I think this may have been a Creole look, I have seen many of the same type of gardens in both Charleston, SC, and Savannah, GA.

I don't plan to open a restaurant out front, but I would like my courtyard to have similar features. I also want to add some foundation plantings but don't want to spend lots of time trimming; and I want to define the Japanese Maple bed that is to the left of the picture above. You can't tell it from the picture (or in real life) but I use the area next to the Maple bed as a walkway to the front gate and I would like for it to be more defined with maybe stepping stones or paving- depending on budget.

Anyway...that is me, my family, and our front garden. Wish me luck!