Our Pretty Stone Pathway

Since I last blogged about the Dutch colonial,

there’s been unbelievable progress, out front!

Let’s remember the sad before, a few weeks after we bought the house:

Here’s a look at the midway:

And as it looks today, the ‘almost’ after:

WOW.

I think I’ll just share bits of it at a time, in small doses.

Let’s start with our new stone pathway

which transitions between the new brick sidewalk + our side yard.

Here’s a glimpse of it, as one approaches the house:

We went shopping at a nearby landscaping place + looked at stone,

+ we bought 3 large slabs of limestone.

G.O. brought out his trusty 4″ angle grinder with a masonry blade, as one does,

+ cut the slabs into smaller, stepping stone friendly pieces:

We had scooped out a shallow trough for the stones.

Once we decided we liked their arrangement,

we put a layer of ordinary play sand underneath each stone:

Funny story.

He grabbed some bags of said play sand at the garden center,

not realizing until he got home that one of the bags contained purple sand!

Who knew?  Crayola makes colored play sand!

In his defense, he said he thought the bag was purple!  HA!

Look!  It’s Chloe the Dachshund!

 

I’m love the gentle curve of the stones,

because I think curves in the landscaping are beautiful + visually pleasing.

Now it’s time to discuss all those beautiful plants!

After weeks + weeks of indecision,

I knew this side of the porch needed a topiary

I remembered seeing some blue spruce topiaries at Home Depot,

+ since I am a huge fan of the blue spruce any-thing, off we went.

Over G.O.’s very strong objections.  Of course.

But people.  COME ON.

Nailed it!!!

Those spiky, grassy plants underneath are ‘Lucerne’ Blue-Eyed Grass,

which have small, bright purple-blue flowers in Spring through early Summer.

Nearby, we planted some silvery-white Artemisia,

as I wanted to repeat the silvery blue needles of our topiary.

Those are going to look great, once they fill in.

Since white flowers also complement silvery foliage,

we planted these cuties along the curve of the stone pathway.

Rapido White Bellflowers:

We repeated these sweet small rose plants on both sides of the pathway,

as I wanted to visually tie that area together.

The green + burgundy Purple Palace Coral Bells

are repeated from the opposite side of the porch,

to once again, tie the whole front foundation plantings together,

from 1 side of the house to the other.

The Coral Bells were planted to accent the 2 curves in this bed —

both the stone pathway . . .

. . . + the curve where this bed meets the lawn (+ the new grass!), out front:

Disclaimer:  everything is going to look so much better with dark brown mulch!

I ordered nearly $80 worth of Spring-flowering bulbs

a couple weeks ago, + I want to plant them before the mulch goes in.

Stay tuned!

 

 

Finally! Landscaping!

Somehow, during this spring’s canned ham makeover,

we’ve managed to do some landscaping for the Dutch colonial.

FINALLY!

Here’s what’s happening out front:

Needle scratch.

Wait.  Where are the plants?

How disappointed was I that the mulch + plants blend too much!?

Buzz kill!

We’ll just have to fix it!

I’m mulling over some possible remedies, so stay tuned.

For now, let’s get back to the landscaping happiness!

We planted 7 barberry shrubs to accentuate our front bay

+ to complement the brick red in our beautiful stone foundation.

Of course, these will make more of a statement

when they mature at around 3′ tall.

In the meantime, for height, we added my beloved pedestal + urn combo.

Doesn’t the lavender look great against our white siding?

In front, we planted a row of pretty coral bells.

Their green + brick red color coordinates nicely with the barberries,

while their larger leaves add contrast, which is visually more interesting.

Now it’s time for some flowers!

Something spiky at either end could provide fun exclamation points,

so we chose red-blooming astilbes.

Ours are a tad lackluster right now,

but fingers crossed — here’s what we’ll have:

Aren’t those pretty?

Speaking of pretty, we planted one accent Knock Out rose at the far left side.

It will grow to about 4′ tall.

Our plans are to add at least one more of this same rose

on the opposite side of the front of our house.

We are going to repeat the coral bells over there, too,

which should add some much-needed balance

to our asymmetrical house.

Sooner than later — I hope — we’ll finally tackle + finish that porch of ours.

Notice how we painted the blocks black to add depth

+ make the lattice pop:

Our front yard looks like there’s been an explosion, but no worries!

Our nice neighbor recently helped us remove the original sidewalks.

We’ve already been shopping for bricks,

because my sidewalk hopes + dreams look a little something like these:

STAY TUNED!