Cleaning out the flower beds {Sprucing up the Outdoors for Spring series}

Yep, I am starting another series! Just cause I am crazy like that.  So for the month of April and probably into the first week of May this will be our schedule around here:

• Monday will feature the “How to shop yard sales” series,
• Wednesday will be this series “Sprucing up the outdoors for spring” and
• Friday is of course our “Friday Fun + Frugal finds” feature that runs all the time.  
• I throw in my Project52 post randomly throughout the week
• and I am itching to get busy on another room transformation or some great DIY project so if I get that done I will find somewhere to fit that in too.

So back to this series…I don’t know about you but spring brings yard work whether you like it or not.  I happen to like it for one because I love the outdoors AND two, I love pretty things!  So making the outdoors pretty makes me want to spend more time out there and spending more time out there makes me want to make it even prettier, it is a vicious cycle.

So I have a few projects to accomplish this spring – the every spring type projects of cleaning out flower beds, etc. but I am also hoping to tackle some new re-do type projects with some great before and after pictures (cause we all love those, especially me who gets to enjoy the “after”.)

So let’s get started on sprucing up the outdoors for spring!

First up, flower beds.  I really should go back and find you an old picture of this flower bed as it has gone through many transitions over the years.  Actually it wasn’t even here when we bought the house 8 years ago.  I put in both beds up front with the edging a year or so after we bought our house.

But here is a picture of how it looked in 2009.  I had bought these bushes that bloomed white in the spring (can’t remember the name?) and they just took over the bed!  I was cutting them back 2-3 times a season and they still just completely overtook the whole bed.

So last year I took out those bushes, transplanted the orange/yellow daylilies to different areas in the yard and started over.  I had some tulip bulbs that I planted and they bloomed well last spring.

My brother bought me a rose bush for my birthday and my husband bought me 2 more for Valentine’s Day.  So I put in 3 rose bushes, 4 azalea bushes, 4 daisy plants and then some seasonal annuals last year.  I really enjoyed the bed last year – the roses bloomed well all summer and even the daisies bloomed too.

And this is March of this year – the plants grew a good bit over last summer and during our mild winter.  And I actually cut the rose bushes back some in late January so they would continue to fill out at the bottom too.  The azaleas are already blooming and the rose bushes and daisies already have blooms. 

BUT the bed was a mess!

I had already cleaned leaves out of this bed during a warm day in February  but it was still a mess.

I purposely invested in good perennial plants for this bed as I didn’t want to have to be replanting this entire bed every year.   (Perennial plants are plants that come back every year.  Annuals usually only last one season.)  But I haven’t found any good small perennial plants to fill in the front area so I usually replant those every year with annuals. 

I love those little 6-packs of plants – they are usually anywhere from $1.25-1.87 each so very inexpensive.  I picked petunias and vincas as they do good in full sun and this part of the yard gets sun for most of the day.

Those got planted and spread throughout the front area of the bed.

I moved the hanging bird feeder/bird bath to the bottom of the bed and I would like to find a large rock to add right under it. 

Then I re-mulched with dark brown mulch I had leftover from last year.  I LOVE the difference some fresh mulch makes on a flower bed! 

I can’t wait for everything to be in bloom! 🙂

I am hoping the daisy plants go crazy this year! Daisies and roses are my favorite flowers and I would love to have enough to take some cuttings for inside.

I will have to remember to take a picture later on when everything is in bloom and share it with you.

But for now the AFTER is much better!

Here is the before:

And AFTER!  (Oh and you can see I spruced up in front of the other bushes below too with some fresh mulch.  Would like to find a good perennial plant for in front of those bushes too.)

Have you been cleaning out any flower beds or sprucing up for spring?   Be sure to come back next week as I share some more flower planting.

{cj}