Friday, March 11, 2016

Spring Plant Wish List

 Everyone has Spring fever, and it's for good reason! It has been an absolutely beautiful week here on the coast of North Carolina. The temperature has been hovering around 65-70 and the sun has been shining against a bright blue sky. Really, you can't ask for much more from Spring! The past several Springs here have been on the cold, wet side so I am just hoping this keeps up!

If you are new here, we bought a fixer upper in 2014, and with the house came a large yard full of potential and lots of work! It feels good to have one solid year of yard work done: last year we did a whole lot of "cleaning out", added multiple hydrangeas and ferns, and added some more bed space in our back yard. That might not seem like a lot, but trust me, it was!

This year our areas of focus are: the new front walkway {I'm saving a post on that until the grass is green and we have some plants to do it justice!}, our back patio's adjoining bed, and overall tidying of current beds.

There still are not a ton of plants available in the nurseries yet, but we of course have some new things on our wish list for Spring.



So, this is actually our sweet golden in front of a Chinese Snowball at our old house. Man, do I miss that thing! We had two of these giant shrubs and they just flourished. We bought one last summer and it just never did much- it is hanging on, but I am definitely getting more this Spring. They are a bit harder to find than your average hydrangea. Also, noted- one of our giant shrubs from the old house started out as a scraggly, barely surviving plant and we happened to put it in a spot it liked, watered it well, and it just took off! You can click above for my post on these...

Catmint image


I have seen catmint in so many photos online and never knew what it was! After reading about it, I think it would make a great plant to line one side of our fence on our side yard. It is a tough perrenial that blooms well even with hot, dry weather...welcome to the south!

Boxwood {image}


We would really love to either expand our foundation bed to either incorporate more boxwoods, or remove the current plants {mostly indian hawthorne} and completely replace with boxwood. Our traditional brick home is just aching for a boxwood hedge!

Hydrangeas image


I can't go through a spring/summer with out adding a few! They are my addiction, it's a good one to have. It seems like they are adding new varieties all the time but a few of my favorites are the classic endless summer {rebloomers}, oakleaf, blushing bride, limelights, and peppermint twist.

Grasses image


We were thinking we would line the new front walkway with some sort of low ornamental grass, but I haven't figured out just what yet. We would like something to soften the edges, that doesn't mound too much {don't want it spreading into the grass}....any ideas? We could use grass borders in a lot of our beds actually.

Fabulous Planters image


My goal every year is to have gorgeous planters like you see at resorts and commercial areas. The meticulous care obviously pays off for them...maybe this year I will tend to them more and have planters I am proud of!


I'm sure my wandering plant eye will find loads more once things are really blooming around here and I cannot wait! Anything on your plant-list this Spring?




2 comments:

Unknown said...


Beautiful ideas for the yard! I always hope that my planters will look great through the summer too, maybe this will be the year!

Alexandra Bee Blog said...

We have such similar landscaping taste! You should also check out limelight hydrangeas. We have several of those and they get really big and bountiful!