This yard is where I dutifully arrive each Friday morning to turn my utilitarian Spanish from “horrible” to  “mejor”.

It was clear that my teacher longed for the flowers that she remembered from her home far away.  I thought it would fun to create a lovely American garden for her, and get an on-the-job Spanish tutorial at the same time.  I was a little embarassed that she could see how bad my Spanish really was!

Her front slope was the first feature seen from the street.  Building a retaining wall helped prevent difficult mowing and erosion, while creating a stunning “first-look” feature.

She and I chose a very different pale lavender colonial thin stone, and a travertine tread for the wall cap. The travertine stone is amazing.  It has remnants of plant fossils scattered throughout the surface. We were lucky enough to find them in a discount pile at a local stone yard.

Next we installed a black aluminum railing for two different sets of stairs leading to the front door. Notice how the railing is utilitarian and handsome. It will be critical for safe walking down the stairs for weather like we had this past March!

 

Next, we cut out a curving half-moon bed line from the front of the house to one end of the wall.  We anchored that same corner near the street with a multi- trunked crape myrtle to give a visual break between the street and front porch. Along the curve of the bed, we planted limelight hydrangeas, amsonia, Shasta daisies and dianthus.

In the shady part of the front of the house we planted semi -evergreen moonbeam encore azaleas, tassel ferns, and her inventory of hostas.  This garden bed has drastic light variations of hot sun to deep shade so we got to work the whole gamut of plant types.

We left plant space empty for her to play with, because it is a small space that will fill up quickly with about 7 good choices. I don’t want to take away all the fun! Correcto?