Last week I shared all of our indoor plants and how I care for them and this week I'm continuing the botanical theme by sharing our current collection of intentional outdoor plants and also the ones we want to plant over the next year.
I do want to preface this by saying about half the plants you'll see we're already on the property when we bought it and the other half are ones we've planted/accumulated in the past year or so. I have not done anything fancy with our outdoor plants. No secret formulas or fertilizers, just knowing where the light hits and what plants do well in high-to-low lighting has been key to getting things to grow in our SC heat.
A List of Our Current Outdoor Plants
- 3 blueberry bushes
- 1 peach tree
- 1 brand new willow tree
- row of sunflowers
- 2 beds of day lilies
- 2 azalea bushes
- wildflower row
- 1 fern
- our raised bed garden ( you can read all about that here)
Because we've been working on other parts of the home renovation creating the perfect flower beds and gardens are just plans in the works but we've actually ripped out a lot of the old/dead thick bushes, overgrown vines, and dying trees that were on the property when we bought it.
The front of our house looks pretty dismal at the moment, actually, because that's where we tore out the most foliage. 7 or 8 large, bee-filled bushes in total.
Our Future Landscaping Plans
Let's start out front.
We're going to start by reseeding both the front and back yard because we currently have a lovely mixture of grass + weeds.
After the house gets painted (hopefully this fall!) we'll draw up plans for our two front beds. The current goal is to mirror the shed beds with a double stack of 4X8 boards. Then we'll fill them in with landscape paper and dirt to raise them up before planting large hydrangea bushes down the length of the front (a la Nantucket landscapes). Probably 4 on either side of the stoop.
(see inspiration below)
Hydrangeas grow best in partial, morning light and since our front yard faces Northeast it'll provide good growing conditions for them.
Along the left side of the house we currently don't have anything going on. We tore out a huge bush from the side last year and since then have just left it alone. Our plan is to extend the front beds down the length of the side, build a lattice structure onto the brick and plant either climbing jasmine or another climbing, flowering plant. We'll take out the chain link fence seen below and add a nice wooden privacy fence with a large gate.
We also want to plant another crepe myrtle tree next to the crab apple tree for extra shade.
In the Backyard
Our goal is to take out as much grass as possible. So once the deck is built we'll be working on a kitchen herb garden, wildflower gardens and more raised bed veggie gardens along the left side of the yard and shed.
Not too much to do!
But really, we love being outside and especially once the deck is built we'll be spending even more time outdoors than ever before so we're looking forward to cultivate a full yard of beautiful plants we can enjoy!