Y’all, I have never in my life been so excited over a blade of grass or a newborn azalea.  The last part of our big curb appeal project is complete!  We’ve gone from no grass, treacherous trees and terribly overgrown shrubs …

   
… to THIS!  We took out two trees, limbed up a few others, made the island much smaller and put in what seems like miles of grass.  It is emerald zoysia, if you are interested in things like that. 

All of the overgrown shrubs in the front beds were torn out, leaving just the two Japanese maples and all the large boulders.  I stuck with very basic plants, in my opinion.  There are two big boxwoods on either side of the front porch, otto luyken laurels along the house, a camellia between the garage windows and a smattering of encore azaleas and gardenias to fill in the rest.  Honey spent two days (and a cooler of beer) pressure washing the sidewalks and half of the driveway (I’m not holding my breath on the other half).  It is AMAZING what prettiness was laying underneath all that gunk.

 
In the bed leading up from the street, we have indian hawthorne, white swan agapanthus and a crepe myrtle.

We went with the smallest plants we could – I call them newborns – because they were so much cheaper.  I’ll share a full before and after as soon as the sun comes back out.  These drizzly, dreary days are pretty perfect for keeping all this green stuff alive!!
xoxo