What's in Bloom: Garden Makeover edition

The weather has been lovely so of course I've been busy in the flower beds again.  Recently we had to pull out two very dead arborvitae and I convinced Ricky to also pull out all the other landscaping behind the house while he had the truck and the chain back there :P

actually, if you notice the other tree on the right of the two dead ones is also dying and I noticed a bunch of 1" sacks in it and I was wondering it that was the bag worms that my brother-in-law Christian had suggested killed the other two.  What should be done about that?

 

Anyway, here was the back of the house before

actually, that's a pretty old photo, I forgot to take an actual "before" photo so I cheated and took this one from my blog archives, from 2 years ago.  Those bushes had been much more, um, bushier, when we pulled them out.  I really just wanted more flowering things and more color.  I really love the cottage style gardens and want to try and go for something like that back here.  I had told Ricky I wasn't going to buy or plant anything until spring but when I went to get the new arborvitae I just couldn't help myself and started buying ALL THE PLANTS! :P

It's looking nice back there already. 

I got two Hydrangea bushes, this one is hot pink flowers:

and this one is blue or purple flowers, depending on what type of soil you have:

I also got a perennial Hibiscus plant that I had been coveting all summer:

These are beautiful, huge blooms that flower all summer long.

I tried really hard not to crowd things together because I know it will all get bigger and fill out over the years but it's hard not to.  I think I restrained myself pretty well though.

That's hardy Geranium in between the hibiscus and hydrangea:

and some foxgloves on the other side of the hibiscus: 

On this side of the house, near the arborvitae I got a crape myrtle (the pink), which will get pretty large eventually and a blue mist Spirea, which I thought was just too unusual and beautiful to pass up.

It gets about 4' tall and much bushier.  I've seen some of them that just droop from all the weight of the flowers and it's gorgeous.

It's still a work in progress but I need to save up some more of my spending money :P  I want to put a blueberry bush in that last big gap, which is not cottage garden but I want one anyway, and I have a neat idea for the space left in between the crape myrtle and arborvitae.  I'll also get a bunch of lower bedding plants in the spring to fill it in more.

While I'm showing you the back of the house, I would like to point out my very picky birds that I have come to my feeder:

apparently they don't like that millet stuff and just scatter it on the ground, silly birds.  I just changed feed so hopefully the new stuff is more to their liking :P

I also found a couple of shade plants to replace that grass I had moved from in front of the dog shed:



Rainbow's end Hosta

They're super cute!
And the Loriope finally started blooming!

I love the way these dainty little flowers look:

I got this dianthis plant for the corner of the rock in our front bed.  I HAD ice plant there but they hadn't looked good when I got them from the nursery and they didn't make it.

I'm really happy with how this front bed is looking.  The Isotoma that I planted this summer has spread out quite a bit already! 

I've decided that I want to get some type of vine this spring for the mailbox.  I have to decide what I want first though :)
So getting to what's in bloom:
This Sedum is driving me nuts.  It is so huge and attracts soooo many bees.  Having something that attracts bees is not the best idea when your husband is VERY allergic to them :/  So it's gonna have to go, I haven't decided if I want to move it somewhere or just get rid of it altogether.  Shasta Daisy's are going in it's place.

This little flower is called Anemone:

I discovered it when I was at the park with my friend Becca and just fell in love with it.  I wanted it to be where I currently have my daisies, that are annuals.  The daisies are doing so well right now I hated to just pull them out and didn't know where to move them so I just crowded the anemone in with them:

So pretty, right?!

Well that's pretty much it for the garden update.  This isn't really garden related but I thought it was funny:

Ricky acquired this bear target at the town wide yard sales this summer and we've been using it for target practice the last several weeks, since we lent our nice target to a certain brother-in-law.  Anyway, after we are done shooting we put it away in the chicken coop, just behind the door.  This thing has scared me so many times already!  I open the door and jump because I think someone is standing there, and then I go about my business, feeding and watering the dogs and chickens and completely forget about it until I see it in the corner of my eye and jump out of my skin AGAIN.  You think I would learn soon :P