Digging in the Dirt

Now that our interior is mostly complete (for now that is - until I decide I can't stand my office or the basement), I've decided to focus my energies on some inexpensive upgrades outside.  Our landscape in the front yard was seriously lacking.  There is a nice cherry tree, some laurels and azaleas in front of the house and a beautiful hydrangea net to the porch that you can't see, but there are no planting beds persay. In other words the grass (which is probably 30% weeds) runs straight up under the azaleas and is impossible to trim.  So for my birthday I told Scott I wanted to spend the day gardening and let him take care of the kid.  I also conveniently got some birthday bucks from the in-laws that allowed me to buy some plants for the front as well for a little DIY curb appeal. 

Here is what it looked like before. Ick!  Look at that long grass in the planting strip between the walk and the driveway.  That was from when I planted pansies and our yard guy seeded grass over top.  At least we can say that our lawn did some serious growing due to the recent rains.  Green and lush and out of control!

I got out the spray paint and painted myself a line for where I wanted to create my beds.
Then I got to work digging with our pick axe (which by the way is seriously useful when you are digging in hard packed dirt - I'd say more so than a shovel).  I attempted to use our neighbor's roto-tiller for a while until I jammed it with all the grass that got tangled around the blades.  In the end the pick-axe was more labor but also more effective.  Here is the final product.  The plants look sort of dinky but they will grow in and in person this is a huge improvement.  Eventually I will add an ornamental plum to the planting strip up closer to the house.  I think the purple foliage will contrast nicely with our yellow door and help to soften the right hand corner.

What sort of projects do you have planned for the end of summer?