Our Front Yard

The inside of our house is at a point that we can live in it and enjoy it while we save money to make some larger improvements.  The outside, on the other hand, is in some major need of TLC and improvement, and now that it's summer, we are all set to get moving!  We started this weekend by making some improvements in the front yard.  J's the "expert" in the yard, but I like pretty plants and flowers, so that's where I come in...

Here's what we started with...

I really like the bushes that don't look dead... the others are just not ever pretty.

There were some random little plants in this area, but I asked J to get rid of them.

In yesterday's Weekend Recap I showed you the flowers and the gloves that came home with us from the nursery... this is what we did with them.

I worked on the little patch by the stairs while J started on the bushes... here is my project:

I got the idea from my mom who has one in her back yard.  It was SUPER easy and I think it's just what this spot needed!  Here are the steps for the DIY tilted flower pots:

Supplies Needed:

- 60" pole of 1/2" rebar

- Hammer (to get the rebar in the ground)

- One large plastic pot (base)

- Drill (to put a hole in the bottom of the base pot, if there isn't one already)

- 4, 10" terracotta pots

- Rocks

- Potting Soil

- Plants to fill pots

Step 1: Dig out some space in the mulch where you want your base pot.  Hammer the rebar about 2 feet into the ground.  Put your base pot over the top of the rebar, fill with about 2" of rock and pack the mulch around the bottom of the base pot.  Fill base pot with potting soil

Step 2: Slide your first pot down the rebar, tilt to one side and let it rest on the base pot's soil.  Fill the base of that pot with rocks (for drainage) and then add potting soil, not filling above the inside rim line.  Repeat this with remaining pots, allowing the next pot to rest on the one below it and tilt the other direction.  When you get to the fourth pot, you may have to hammer the rebar down further so it cannot be seen... this is about as high as it should be in the top pot

Here's what it should look like when you finish Step 2

Step 3: Fill your pots with flowers.  Make sure the flowers you use will be good in the location of the tower... don't put full sun plants in a shaded area.  Also, I would use plants that stay fairly short... something that grows to be 12"-14" tall is probably too tall for this project.  I honestly don't remember what it is that I even put in these pots, but here's what's in my pots

The top is a flower that we were going to split but could not... obviously not blooming yet.
The bottom is a clover... again, I don't remember what kind... I just thought it was pretty.

These two pots have the same plants in them, and we actually just bought one a split them.
The green leafy plant should also have flowers soon.

And one more time... the finished product:

 

I put Chicks n' Hens in the blank space in the base pot to spruce it up some!

Now... on to the bushes.  Here's the progress:

 

Once J ripped out the yucky bushes and marked off the new flower bed area

I actually forgot to take pictures along the way since I was hard at work doing other things, but here's how it turned out...  we have to go buy some more mulch to put around the bushes and to even out the rest of the bed, but you get the idea.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out!  The flowers are impatiens and those green plants between the flowers are a different kind of impatiens with smaller white flowers that will bloom a little later into summer.  It was a great day to be out in the yard, and I'm so happy that we have some pretty flowers in the front.  The bushes will hopefully grow in quickly and we will do a much better job of keeping them under control than they were when we moved in.

On to the back yard... in a few weeks  :)