Looks great. Lots of hard work there but it sure paid off. Love to see photos when it's completely done.
Cher

Thanks for sharing your pics with us.

You obviously thought ahead with the garden seating & low maintenance features with the soaker hose, curved rocky paths & stacked rock edging. Your bench looks sturdy & very comfortable with the cushion.

I'm not familiar with your climate, but sure hope you have enough rain or water budget to re-establish your hosta amongst those thirsty trees. What mulch are you going to use to cover the soaker?

Is the brick path connected to a concrete driveway? How nice that it's accessible even in wet weather!

Maybe you've already thought about these things in your new garden, but just in case...

How often are you near this garden? Will you be there in winter & have you thought about evergreens?
Would you like a small table next to the bench to enjoy a drink or a meal?

Corrine

Lol! Hi Corrine! Yes, to most of those questions.

The brick sidewalk was already there and connects the driveway to the front door. The bench is there because absolutely NOTHING will grow around the gas lamp which was also already there. After three years of watching everything in an arc radiating out from the lamp literally melt away, I gave up. I plan on putting pots of shade plants there.

I haven't thought of a table, but since I am short I may put sort of resting place for my feet. The bench we got on clearance at HD.

There are already SOOOO many trees in the yard (a visiting friend counted 67) that I'm not planning on planting another. Well, I lied, I did plant the dogwood. The yard has dogwoods, but they are wild and not especially pretty.

The plants I planted there five (or so) years ago (5 encore azaleas, the dogwood, hosta, heuchera, fern astilbe) are all doing well. They even made it through the drought we had and the two years I totally neglected them.

I can hear the gasps when I reveal that I am first and foremost a quilter. So I HAVE to have something that is low maintenance. While I was waiting for my dh to help me redo the soaker hoses, it took me 2.5 hours a day to water everything. I hand watered each and every plant making sure the water soaked and didn't just run off. That was time I could have been quilting. LOL

The triangle bed has the hoses laid. I'm not going to plant anything else in that garden this year. The teen boys will put in the toad pond and I don't want them stepping on anything else. I haven't decided if I'll plant anything else in the semicircle this year.

I will probably get the mulch at a local place. I have no idea what you call it ... it is a place that you can order various "textures" of mulch (finely shredded through nuggets). They dump it on your driveway and you spread it. It is a BOATLOAD of work, but better than buying 50 bags at HD.

Before I hated the front yard. Now I can see that it may eventually actually look like the little picture in my head.

Robin in NC

I did 110 bags of mulch from HD though. You can have a guy from HD put it into your trunk. My car's trunk carries 10 bags each run. My garage is uphill from the road. They are relatively easy to lift / drag from the trunk into a garden cart, one bag at a time. This way I do not need to shovel it into a cart, push it uphill and clean up the driveway.
Bernd

Wow. I esp like the flat rock & gravel walkway.
Where did you get flat rocks like that? What a
great look.

Robin--you're doing a great job of turning your front area into a lovely place to sit on that bench
and just relax! I can see a hosta paradise down the road for you--I hope your wallet can take the hit! :o))

During the winter, many of us can be found panhandling on our town's street corners! Of course our cardboard sign
will say something like, "will work for money, etc. to feed the kids", etc., cause NO ONE would give us money
for a plant habit! (grin)

Thanks Sassy! I'm happy with it.

There is a local place called Hillybilly Produce that sells, along with plants and produce, "wire cages" of all kinds of rock from the kind that are shaped like potatoes to these that were flat. There are a couple other nurseries that also sell rock.

If there is not a nursery that sells rock near you, see if there is a "quarry" type place. That is where I got the gravel. I don't think they are a franchise, but you can check. The name of is Blue Max Materials. They have rock, gravel, flagstone, mulch etc.

Hey_j, my dh already says he can't retire because he has to support my quilting habit. I'm going to try to keep my hosta habit a secret. I know ... I'll tell the kids I'm spending their inheritance.

Berndh, my dh decided he did not want a pile of mulch on the driveway all summer again. The little nursery that Coral and I met at this morning had some terrific looking mulch so I'm just going go the bag route. Btw, she is delightful. Plus her questions made my head spin. I definitely have a lot to learn!

Robin

Don't forget to first place a large tarp into the trunk to avoid any mess by potentially wet bags. One guy I met did not do it and had a mess in his car.
Bernd

The nice cyprus mulch was on sale at walmart for cheaper than I could get it in bulk for.

Used 170 bags to top dress about 1/2 the yard.