creating a rainbow out of clay

When we moved into our house over four years ago, the front yard landscaping wasn’t exactly too spiffy, as you can see in the photo below.

There was a garden bed. And grass. But our house definitely lost the “cool house” lottery when the developers planted them just 3 short years before.

As you may remember, back in May I decided to surprise Mr. M with a front yard landscaping renovation. Well, it took a few more months to finally find the time to finish everything (glazing rocks, adding more plants & drip systems, etc.), but here’s what it all looks like today (please forgive the uncut lawn…):

After many attempts at trying to just pick out pretty flowers at the nursery and Lowe’s and make it work, I turned to the Internet for garden bed plans that would layer and grow well.

I ended up finding this “Dose of Red Hot Color!” garden plan at Better Homes & Gardens and ran with it. And so far… it’s been thriving through the hot hot heat of summer all the way into fall!  I really didn’t expect it to be so bright and colorful and long lasting, so I’m truly impressed… especially since most of our neighborhood is still stuck with the drab de-facto landscaping that we had previously. With our orange door, we definitely stand out among our neighborhood now.

And the fun doesn’t stop there… Mr. M even got encouraged to add some more color (and rip out some more existing plants) at a recent plant sale, so more new plants will be popping up through the winter!

I guess my green thumb isn’t quite as toxic as it used to be? Or else I’ve just learned that gardening, like baking, is an art and you can’t just throw in whatever you want and think it’ll come out as you intend.