The Front Garden Is Finally Finished!

While it has taken several weeks to complete, I kept pushing myself beyond even my expectations. I would get up around 4:30 in the morning and work for a couple hours before going to work. Then, when I came home, I would do more, eat dinner and drag myself to bed. Just to repeat it the next day. During these past couple of months, I put my back out several times, pulled muscles in my foot, and every part of my body was sore for weeks!

Why push so hard? There are actually two reasons. One is my mother-in-law Audrey is turning 90 and we are having a party for her here. The other is I am having surgery and will be out of commission for several weeks and want everything done beforehand.

The latter was a must for me. Not having things done and me not being able to do them would have driven me up the wall!

Now I don’t have to worry about it, and I will be able to concentrate on healing faster!

I am going to start by showing you what I began with and finally revealing the results.

Our addition/renovation was great for the inside of the house, but not so much for the outside.

My garden suffered from the addition/renovation as well. With all the machinery and work being done, I was not able to tend to them and they were severely overgrown.

Even the forsythia bush was out of control!

I started with the forsythia bush making it easier to get to the actual garden.

After weeks of pulling out weeds and taming back the out-of-control groundcover, I asked myself was it worth it?

The answer is emphatically. Yes!! I love the way it looks now, and I don’t cringe anymore when I pull into the driveway.

My sister-in-law gave me a beautiful wooden piece of wall art with iron work detailing a few years ago. I absolutely adored it but was never able to find the perfect place. As the garden was taking shape, I knew I would need something to deal with the large utility box. I tried a few things but liked the wall art the best. It needed some more height, so I attached a sign I purchased last year from Michaels. Voila, a one-of-a-kind garden ornament!

Since I had to dig up a lot of plants to remove the intertwined ground cover, I took a chance and pulled out the large spirea bush and transplanted it on the other side of the garden.

As you can see in this picture it is thriving!

A friend of mine gave me this crate a while ago. Even though it had a broken side I thought it was cool and took it hoping I would find a place for it. That day is here! I needed something behind the sign and immediately an image of the box with flowers in it came to mind. Perfect!

After removing the groundcover, I found plants I didn’t even know I had. If you look closely at the lower half of the wrought iron tower there is a climbing vine with purple flowers. I planted that a couple years ago and it is finally showing!

If you recognize this perennial, can you leave the name in the comments? I would appreciate it!

And here is my finished cottage garden. I can’t wait until it starts to fill in!

If you want to see the making of the cottage garden, check out: Creating A Cottage Garden blog posts: Part One/Part 1.5/and Part Two