Now, the good news. My bulbs are fantastic. The crocuses had nice blooms earlier, and many of the tulips are now in bloom – a rich, slightly-orange shade of red. The daffodils are just going out of bloom, they were quite pretty, and the irises and asiatic tiger lillies are growing like mad.

I did find a young Yoshino cherry to plant in the berm (along with a Frech lavender), and it started to bloom 2 days after I stuck it in the ground.

I overseeded much of the front yard. Last summer’s drought was especially hard on the grass.

For the centerpiece of the back (north) part of the berm, I plan on putting in a Yoshino Cherry tree much like the one shown to the left. However, it appears that I will have to wait until spring before I can acquire a young tree and plant it.

The centerpiece of the front (south) part of the berm will be an ornamental grass of some type. Possibly a Maiden Grass such as this one shown below:

I’d like to have a lot of mounding plants in the berm, such as a variety of heathers. To that end, I’ve ordered the “Color All Year” collection from heathsandheathers.com. It’s a collection of 6 winter blooming and 6 summer blooming heathers. I think that should look good. For additional summer blooms in a mounding form, I plan on putting in a couple of choreopsis plants, such as this one:

Finally, I’ll be filling in the remaining areas with plants that bloom in the spring and fall – such crocuses, tulips, and chrysanthemums – and plants with interesting foliage colors and textures such as juniper, artemisia, and ferns.

Below are some pictures of the work I’ve done.

Hope everyone keeps cool!

My current project is located in my parents’ side yard. A few weeks ago, I cut down a spruce tree that was about 20 feet in height. In the area it occupied, my plan is to create an earthen berm for planting. The plan is to make it somewhat crescent-shaped, with four specific planting areas. On either end will be some sort of shrub. The back center will have a Yoshino Cherry tree planted. This will be the focal specimen of the entire project. The front center will be planted with a dozen different varieties of heaths and heathers. This will give it year-round interest. And between the different areas I will use low-growing plants for filler.

That’s the plan. Right now, I’m working on digging up the lawn where the berm will be. I still need to decide on what sort of material I will use to create a border between the berm and the lawn. If you have any ideas, post it in the comments!

But. And it was a big but.

My mother informed me that one of the containers I planted wasn’t meant to go in the pool area, but was supposed to be on the front porch.

No problem, we’ll just pick it up and move it to the front, right? Wrong.

Turns out that she wanted the container on the front to be planted all one kind of flower. So that pot stayed put.

The next week, I dragged her out to buy annuals. And she bought a whole lot of vincas.

So, I planted the leftover container with the vincas and put it on the front porch for her. And then I wondered what the heck to do with the remaining flowers. Eventually, she and I each bought a flower pot and I planted them with vincas, and I planted what was still left over by the birdbath.