before & after: landscaping part 1

Apologies for being MIA for so long. But I'm back and with my first before and after post!

As I mentioned before, costs aside, we were thrilled to be able to design our own landscaping with the help of the phenomenal B&D Landscaping. As I previewed in my Landscaping Adventures post, we approached landscaping with a lot of excitement ... and a lot of trepidation. Making some very large, expensive decisions before we knew what the neighborhood would look like was intense. Now that it's installed, I think we made some really smart decisions like adding an extra patio and spending more money on the front than in the back.

We also made a couple of questionable decisions. Due to our budget constraints, we had to purchase very young plants. As you'll see in the pictures below, they're teeny. I know that they'll grow, but I wish that we would have found a little more room in our budget to purchase larger, more mature plants so we wouldn't have to wait as long for the yard to take shape.

We still have some additions to make -- we have a ton of perennials being installed in the spring -- but the majority is in and looking great.

Because I've taken so many pictures I'm breaking it into two separate posts, starting with the front yard. So, without further ado ...

West side of house



Before - look at all that dirt!

Halfway through install

Ta da!

There are a couple knock out rose bushes and a dwarf globe spruce

Front of house

Before -- not very welcoming

Looking down the yard

Halfway through install

The finished product!

The area right in front of our front door -- a dwarf butterfly bush and dwarf globe spruce

In front of our office window -- moonshadow euonymus. This is a great example of where more mature plants would have been better

Looking at the far corner of our front yard -- more of the same with some blue mist spirea

 

Looking back into the yard from the east

 

 

East side of house

 

We installed a breezway to have an easy walkway from the front to back

So there you have it. Evan also added some uplighting and lanterns along our entryway. We love it and can't wait to see how it grows and matures.