The front garden

After my favourite aunt in the USA was awarded "Yard of the Month" a little while ago, we thought we had better get going to bring ours up to scratch.  So when we left it at the end of the build it looked like this:

With all the work in the back garden we ignored the front and it rapidly became wild

We must have dug that area over three or four times between weeding and spraying.  Finally we put the first lot of gravel down.

The section to the left of the path has two strips of matting so it can be used as driveway, the right side is going to be a mixture of succulent planting with bulbs and flowers mixed in.

Now the fun started, in November I spent about 4 hours planting around 200 bulbs, we then had to sit and hope that they all came up.

They did..

First up were the crocuses. I should mention at this point that we have decided on a white and blue scheme for the majority of the planting. The white crocus were planted in the middle of the drive way.

Crocus Jeanne D'Arc

Then the snowdrops, irises and strangely the anemones flowered after that.

Iris Reticulata Harmony

Iris Reticulata J.S. Dijt

 Next up putting the path in the left hand side to create a little central bed.

It's going to be a little more traditional than the cactus back garden, flowers, lots of blue and white with maybe the odd splash of orange.

Don't worry though as there will be a few succulents and other unusual plants thrown in to keep it interesting.

By now most of the tulips are out, mainly white but with a few orange thrown in for good measure

The white looks good, but the blue / purple anemone still takes it for me.

There have been two surprises with things not turning out as they are suppose to: white, blue or orange!

Those two will have to go.

The central bed is really filling up now.

The juniperus squamata 'Blue Star' made the cut into the central bed.

The pinus mugo 'Sherwood compact' is being made to wait for a place.

I think that will be it for now, while we see how it fills out. 

It may be a while until we get awarded best front yard though.