Front Yard Landscaping in Progress

If anyone remembers "Church Ladies complain about my front lawn", they will be pleased to see that something is being done to reclaim the lumpy, weedy, mass that used to greet the neighborhood. Earlier this month, we hired some guys to come and dig out the fireweed, dandelion, and general funkiness out front. They hauled it all away and replaced it with composted manure.

Then we got to do the hands-on, fun stuff. Which included rounding up about 50 boxwood hedge plants (I think we bought all that were available in Humboldt), some lavenders, grasses, heathers (from Farmers' Market!), and twenty-three 2 1/2 gallon buckets full of small mulch. Then spacing out, planting, and putting mulch on the hillside.

Foundation planting

In April of this year, we ripped out some of the lawn bordering the front porch and put in some foundation plantings. The idea was to reduce the amount of lawn (it now takes 10 seconds less to mow the frontyard!) and to create an organic buffer to the tall Victorian foundation skirting.

Ripping out the grass by hand (with a maddock) was a challenge.. let's just say it was a good workout and I got to skip the gym for a couple days afterwards. We planted Mexican feather grass, California poppies, Rockrose, Heather, and some dogwood.

Before/during (including canine supervision):

After: