New House Front Yard Garden Tour

Our gardens are finally starting to look better!!

If you’ve visited my blog before, you’ve probably heard me whine talk about the many challenges we’ve encountered with the house we bought almost two years ago.

While it is a newer home, it hadn’t been maintained well inside or out in recent years.

(Total sidebar: how gorgeous are those #PureMichigan blue skies??)

Here’s a peek back at where we’ve come from…

Getting grass to grow has been just short of impossible. It’s due to a combination of the sand that’s common around here, and a heavy reliance on pesticides by the previous owners.

This spring we finally found a yard treatment company that seems to be moving us in the right direction. They’ve been using a treatment protocol that neutralizes the pesticides.

The border gardens and window boxes have added so much curb appeal I don’t have to close my eyes as I pull in to the driveway any longer! Yea for progress.

Ditto for the backyard. Major, back breaking work that is beginning to pay off this summer.

Today I thought I would show you around out front. Then save the backyard for later in July when more of the perennials are (fingers crossed) in bloom.

Front Yard Garden Tour

First stop on the front yard garden tour?

The rusty blue bike and the black horse heads. They made the trek with us from our old house to our new one in Michigan.

The window boxes we added last year are such an improvement. And there’s nothing I like more in the garden than a window box (except maybe a blue bike??).

I’m now on the hunt for shutters… I want some with a little personality but that aren’t too crazy.

We are having the front door repainted in July. It currently has high gloss auto paint on it and I’m too much of a chicken to try painting over that on my own.

My sister even found a second blue bike for me, and now we have one in the side yard by the arbor gates. I’ll share that in the next garden tour blog.

As was the case at our old house, the bike and window box have developed their own fan club around here, too. Even the crew that does our lawn care (young guys mostly) give me input on what to put in them season by season.

One of the crew called us when he was driving by this winter and noticed someone in the yard looking at the bike. He was worried they were stealing it.

Window boxes for character and charm

I have to confess that when we bought the house, I wasn’t totally loving it. It was a beautiful house, but it just didn’t scream “buy me!” like our old house did from the moment I walked in the front door all those years ago.

To be fair though, leaving a character-filled historic home and garden in a town we loved wasn’t easy. So any house would have big shoes to fill…

In the almost two years we’ve been here, my goal has been to give the house charm and personality. While it’s a little trickier trying to add character after a house is built, it’s starting to come together.

Window boxes are one way to do that…

Since I’m asked this question quite often, I ordered the window boxes online. They are from a company called, Flower Window Boxes.

Besides being the nicest people who answered all of my 410 questions without seeming to get exasperated, they are in Georgia and all of their window boxes are “Made in the USA!”

The style I chose (the Charleston) had quite a few options. I chose the XL size that was deeper and it was a good call. (Yep, patting myself on the back as I type that.) It gives my plants more root space and they just dig it. Pun intended.

The brackets are another option. They are just decorative – the window boxes don’t actually sit on them. Since our window boxes sit so low (our windows are long), the brackets really give it a finishing touch.

Another window box perk?

These beauties that visit. This is the view from the window box attached to my home office window.

Pretty cool huh?

Creating borders in the front yard

One of my goals for our first full summer in the house last year was to create the foundation for the all of our borders.

We have this one on the side of the walkway that leads to the front door…

There was a large shrub in the border (the right side of the picture above) that was covered up by overgrown “stuff.” We think it is a type of hydrangea.

The center of the picture above is a lilac tree. They were my little grandma’s favorite and I was so glad to have a place for a tree in my front yard.

Lilacs love Michigan, especially northern Michigan and Mackinac Island. And my little grandma loved her house on the lake up there!

My knock out roses are loving this little spot and I put the bird bath from my aunt right next to them.

The combination of bird bath and shrubs are big hit with the feathered folks in the neighborhood. Seriously. There is always a bird party going on in this corner.

The rocks were ones we found in a pile on the “ugh” side of the house. (How we referred to the serious pile of junk that lined the right side of our house.)

You can get the full view of the front border in the first few photos above.

This corner along the front is still a work in progress. It’s leads back to what was the “ugh” side of the house.

We planted these beautifully colored trees in the fall. Our old rusty bench and St. Fiacre statue also helped give it a little short-term appeal while we were working on the side yard.

We had so much debris and junk to haul out of that side we couldn’t really plant anything in front of it before. I’m hoping to work on it now that all of the “ugh” has been hauled out out of there.

Front porch is up next on the improvements list

One item I didn’t get to last fall like I hoped was our front porch.

Here it is last summer…

While I’ve managed to improve it somewhat this summer, it still needs work. After the painter finishes the front door next month, it’s first on my MUST DO list.

Mailbox planter garden

Pops helped us add this planter box to the mailbox a few weeks after we moved in. It was a little more tricky than we imagined it would be.

What was even trickier? Trying not to get run over by cars.

Even taking pictures is a death-defying stunt. Our subdivision is fairly quiet with few cars until… we try to do anything near the mailbox.

The delight is in the details

Because I’m a detail person, I always think everyone else is too. Right?

Here are a few of the fun details in the front yard…

This pottery garden totem I made a few years back lives by the front porch.

The two little turtles below live in the rock garden where the birds hang out.

Pops made them for me after he retired. No pattern. No training. Just figured it out on his own.

And these whimsical hose guards are some my mom discovered…

They are cute AND they keep my flowers from getting crushed by the hose.

And that’s a wrap, friends. Hope you enjoyed part one of my garden tour!

Here’s a sneak peek at the backyard… I’ll be posting that tour later in July.

Before you hit the road, would you mind sharing the collage image below on your Instagram or Pinterest page?

It helps more people find my blog. Then maybe someday I’ll be able to turn my hobby in to a paying gig!

Until next time,

Shelley