Floral

I love flowers but I don’t know too much about them. This can be a challenge when you’re trying to garden your new home.

Most of our backyard is the pool and concrete, with a little grass, so to soften the space, I planted some begonias, marigolds and other flowers in pots spread out around the pool. I am pretty happy with how it looks and I may expand it next year with some flowers planted in the ground.

Most of the front was gardened already by the previous owner but there is some stuff I’d like to redo. On one side of the driveway, we have a bunch of those orange daylilies or whatever they’re called. They looked OK when they bloomed but they died a few weeks ago. Now the remains are just kind of flattened down so they look like matted hair and it looks awful and I hate it. It embarrasses me. Plus the lilies appear to be tangled with a bunch of white flowers so I have no idea what’s going on since I didn’t plant it. Maybe I can transplant them.

We also have way too many hostas. They look OK but they also look a little creepy to me, like the pods on the planet in Alien. We also don’t need 45 of them. Plus, I like a lot of color, rather than just green. I’m not getting rid of them but I would like to cut down. There are also these little green leaves, ivy-like, covering the area next to the driveway, but they’re a waste of space and I’d like to get rid of them.

I’m going to wait until the fall because I don’t know what they planted or what’s coming. Then I’m going to overhaul the area out front. I’d like to start over with something that is better planned that is actually what we want and not what the previous homeowner wanted. There’s just not a lot of art to what we have now.

I have no idea what I’m doing here. I’d love to hire a gardener who can show me a book of flowers or something and I can point at what I like but I don’t know if we can afford that so I’ll probably do it myself. I guess I should wait until spring? I don’t want to miss fall planting and get to next year and find out I should have started last year. I can probably plant some mums this fall.

What I want is an absolute riot of color. I want as much color as possible. I want to plant a bunch of perennials that will bloom as long as possible. I’ll have to do some research and I’ve also walked around the neighborhood to see what other people are doing. I know I like hydrangeas, tulips (although I have to have other flowers planted in the same area for the time when the tulips don’t bloom) and some pretty, long-stemmed purple and yellow flowers that I can’t identify. I also am considering some kind of flowering bushes that won’t look terrible once the blooms die. After vacation is over, I’ll figure out what I’m doing.

We also are planting some trees this fall. We have a big front yard that seems to be screaming out for trees, either shade or fruit. There are also a few areas of the yard that could use little groupings of flowers since it’s looking bare in some spots.

I do love being outside and gardening and doing yardwork, even though I’m an amateur. I love summer and will hate to get out of the pool but am looking forward to one aspect of the fall: I will no longer have to spend two hours every weekend mowing the lawn and weeding.