Front Yard Redo Before and After

It's AMAZING what two weekends and a little sweat equity can do for a front yard.....

Here's a "before" shot. My yard was a mess, a real mess. I love working out there and regularly maintained my flower beds until my daughter was accepted at a wonderful high school that happened to be 45 minutes (on a good day) away from home. Despite carpooling with another family, I spent many an hour on the highway until she was old enough and experienced enough to make that drive by herself...... and my yard suffered. DOUBLECLICK on the pics to enlarge them. Pretty disgusting, huh? Those sago palms were planted WAY too close together and the border grass was encroaching into the bed.... And the Japanese magnolia had not grown an inch in five or more years. I originally had beds on both sides of my front walkway but I let one of them grow over and neglected the heck out of the other one. And I planted things piecemeal without any real master plan. When I'd pass those houses with gorgeous yards, I'd dream of what mine could become.....

All summer Johnny and I talked about how we might redo the yard..... But we decided to wait until cooler weather to put our plan in motion. Our original plan was to rent a tiller for the day but when I found out how expensive that would be, I decided to see how much more it would cost to hire someone to do the tilling. One call later and I had a very reasonable offer from a guy named John that was too good to pass up...... Are you ready to see the complete and total transformation???????

Isn't that about the prettiest raised bed you ever saw in your life? My entire house has a completely different appearance now. After much debate, we decided to pull up and pot the sagos. They are showing slight signs of shock but I really think they'll make it.

We alternated Japanese Yaupon Holly with Indian Hawthorne and accented with variegated liriope. The hollys will grow to three feet in both height and width so we spaced them accordingly. Didn't John do a wonderful job with that tiller? Not to mention his very hot looking assistant... tehee... We plan to put in another crepe myrtle at the stucco corner to balance off the other one.

Here's another shot....

Home Depot has a new ground cover called Mexican Salsa that I fell in love with.... It's currently their Plant of the Month. Weeds are always a particular problem around those roots so I thought that ground cover might help stave them off..... I'm not sure what I want to plant down the side of the house so you can see it's left bare. Any suggestions?

Just in case you forgot how awful that yard was, here's another before shot....

Next dilemma....... The front door is worn down to the bare wood from that blistering afternoon sun. Johnny suggested that we paint it a pretty glossy red. We narrowed down the choices to two.... And I painted a little sample of each on the door because I need your input. Which color do you prefer, burgundy wine on the left or sweet spiceberry on the right?
Thanks for visiting. Please take a moment to stop in and say hi and DO come back now........