One Room Challenge: The Front Garden Plan
It's Week 2 of the
Spring 2021 One Room Challenge
and things are moving along. If you missed Week 1, you can catch up
here.
As I shared last week, our One Room Challenge project is focused on our front garden. Right now, this 'garden' is little more than a few boxwoods and hostas and a pile of dirt but hopefully soon, it will be a colorful, thriving space. As a reminder here's what the front garden looks like right now.
We've thought about how to address this garden over the years. We've come up
with fun ideas (none of which we'll be pursuing for this project) but I
thought it would be fun to share some of those plans with you.
Plan Option: A Front Exterior Renovation
First, the roof line over the door would be extended to over the right front window. An addition would be added over the garage and the garage roof would be reoriented. Our front lawn slopes down to the sidewalk and this plan would call for removing the giant tree in front of our house and levelling out the lawn. A red brick retaining wall and walkway would add a sense of formality and more pleasing traditional landscaping.
Plan Option: Colourful Plants
This plan was drawn up by Chloe last summer just before we
relaid the front walkway. She was all about bringing colourful flowers to the front yard. I like
her idea of repetition, with the boxwoods appearing on either side of the
walkway. Puffy alliums create a row behind and a tree would anchor the
area in front of the window. I think the girl is showing some design
talent ;)
Landscape Design Consultation
The landscape designer was a great help in giving us guidance on what plants
would be suitable for our front garden. Our garden faces east and gets
partial shade. She advised on what plants are suitable for our zone here in
Toronto and informed us about a current problem with the boxwood leaf miner
here in Ontario. Sadly, we do have an infestation in our existing boxwoods
but I've treated the plants and hopefully they'll survive!
Here's the plan she devised. It was based on our plant preferences,
including things like a boxwood hedge, hydrangeas, and flowers that I love
like coneflowers and black eyed susans. She incorporated existing elements
like the two trees (obviously) and Solomon's seal that are already in the
garden.
Being the "extra" person that I am, I photoshopped plants and trees onto
her plan to give a life-like rendering. After seeing the plan in its
glory, we realized it still wasn't quite right for us. We weren't keen on
the shrub-like Japanese maple, and though I loved the yellow flowers, they
just didn't work in this scheme.
So taking this plan as a foundation, and researching other plants in the
Sheridan Nurseries catalogue, we revised our front garden plan to this:
This was feeling more like "us". We're not fans of a lot of variety in a
garden so stuck to just a few different plants and a cohesive colour
scheme.
We introduced stonecrop (sedum), one of my favourite plants to create a
low line at the front of the garden. Behind that we switched the Japanese
maple for a rhododendron and repositioned the euonymus tree so it's more
visible from the street.
Large rocks that we already have in our backyard will be moved to the
front and add texture. And finally, purple coneflowers scattered
throughout will fill in the space nicely. My plan is to add spring bulbs
this fall so that tulips or daffodils can fill out the garden before the
coneflower appears later in the summer.
Winter Interest
The one question that remains outstanding is whether to add in some evergreens for year round interest. We have room at the end of the hydrangeas for a tree, if we decide to do that. But currently, our thought is that if we leave the hydrangeas through the winter and not prune until spring, plus the rocks, euonymus tree and rhodendron, the garden won't look too sparse. The dead nettle will also have a presence year round, unlike the hostas which die off and reappear in spring.I'm learning that a garden is much like a symphony. There are high notes and low notes. There are grand crescendos that burst forth and repetitive choruses that bring order. The magic is in how you bring it all together and form a year-long melody!
The Front Garden Plan
Of course I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I added grass and soil and pavers into my photoshop rendering. We won't be putting in the boxwood hedge this year because of the leaf miner problem, but aim to plant the rest. Here's what we'll be planting:
And here's hopefully what things will look like at the end of the One Room
Challenge. I took the opportunity to test out a different front door
colour, add some plants in the urns, and switch out the outdoor pillows as
well. Can you tell I love to photoshop?
The plants have been ordered and with current timelines, they should be here in about two weeks. However, the soil is arriving tomorrow and we're going to get the garden ready to go.
Follow along on my Instagram stories to see how things are progressing and don't forget to check out the One Room Challenge blog to see all of the other projects!
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