More than dirt

Now we have more than dirt in the front yard! We haven't had anything (plant-wise) since we pulled out the huge junipers that were in front of the house when we bought it. Love the Home Depot BOGO shrub coupon. Those trees count as shrubs!

Here is a close up of one of those sides.

We moved all of the iris into a row along the back of the bed. The light green shrubs are Gold Mound Spirea. The darker one is McKay's Potentilla. But both of the Potentillas have since died. All of the ones we saw at the store were also dead so there must have been a funky shipment. Oh well. So now there is a hole there. I'm thinking about "Wine & Roses" Weigela for that spot (but then all of my shrubs would have pink flowers) or maybe Korean Spice Viburnum. They say these smell great - but "Korean Spice" doesn't really connote "smells great" to me. Any of you smelled it?

I also have some Sweet Woodruff scattered around. That's all for perennials. We have the pansies and lavender still, and some yellow daisy thing for our annuals. Rick put in an irrigation system so I think that these will grow and thrive! Remembering to water plants is not my forte.

We have also ripped up the front lawn again in preparation for the sprinkler system and some new plants. We are decreasing the lawn size in hopes of increasing its chance to live. Maybe we'll do better after it gets watered automatically instead of at our whim. :) We are also going to put a bit more time into soil prep this time so hopefully we can grow some grass in our clay!