Ever since we moved into our home about 10 years ago, I’ve wanted to plant a a sunny perennial flower garden on the south side of my home. That side gets plenty of sun, offers some privacy and sits just under our living room window. If I planted a flower garden there, I figured, my family and I could just look out the window and look at the beautiful flowers.
Several years went past, and my sunny perennial flower garden didn’t materialize. After all, starting a new garden is a lot of work! There is sod to be removed, soil to amend/improve, flowers to plant and mulch to be applied.
I’ve always loved how gardens and flowers can turn an average house and yard into a beautiful home. For instance, take a look at house Carlene of Organized Clutter’s perennial garden really added some beauty to her front yard! If she posted a garden plan, I would definitely plant that garden! I also really love her front flower border, which was featured in Flea Market Gardens magazine. I’d like to add a garden like that to my front yard!
Planting a Sunny Perennial Garden
This spring, I finally got started on my gsunny perennial flower arden. My husband took care of getting rid of the grass for me, and I planted some lilies, garden phlox, “Raspberry Surprise” dianthus and Cheddar Pinks [Dianthus gratianopolitanus ‘Firewitch’ (‘Feuerhexe’)].
What my flower garden looked like earlier this spring.
My garden didn’t look like much at first, because it was surrounded by dry, dead grass. But then, I got to work removing that grass, added some topsoil and spread 15 bags of mulch across the top of my garden. It was a lot of work!
Thank goodness a helpful salesperson loaded all 15 bags for me onto my cart, and into my car. Otherwise, I don’t know if I would have been able to get all the mulch home! LOL.
I had to unload these bags of mulch myself, but at least I didn’t load them into the van!
Spring and Summer Garden
Of course the “real feel” temperature the day I bought, unloaded and spread the mulch had a “real feel” temperature of over 100 degrees fahrenheit. But I was determined to get the job done that day, so I wasn’t going to let anything get in my way! I can be ridiculously super focused that way! At least I made sure that I stayed hydrated, and drank LOTS of water while I worked.
The new sunny perennial flower garden on the south side of my home.
But I have to say that I love, love, LOVE! the way my garden looks now, and am so glad that I put the sweat equity into it! What do you think?
Golden Sunflowers
Even though they haven’t bloomed yet, I am especially in love with the sunflowers I planted. I planted several seed packets worth of sunflowers, but only two are growing. They are very tall, however, and once they bloom, my daughters and I will be able to see them from our living room window — a big plus! Another benefit is that I’ve already seen a beautiful yellow butterfly fluttering around the garden. Lovely! This is a closeup of the sunflowers. I hope they bloom soon!
A closeup of my garden’s sunflowers. (With some lillies that bloomed in the spring in the foreground.)
I have at least two different varieties of lilies in the garden. I have these orange and yellow lilies …
Orange lillies
But my favorite lilies are the Stella D’Oro lilies. They have been providing consistent color throughout the spring and summer!
Stella D’Oro lily
Until this summer, I wasn’t really acquainted with phlox, but now that I have some, I love them! I only put them in a few weeks ago, but they have been providing consistent color. I have some phlox in purple and white.
My purple garden phlox
I’ve read that phlox attract butterflies, so I hope that is true!
More Coming Soon!
I recently made a really easy and inexpensive bird bath for the garden, so I will take pics of the bird bath and share it with you here on the blog soon! I also have a new great red cardinal flower from a friend (thanks, Sue!), so I will have to get some photos of that, too!
I might also work on creating a perennial border under the trees and shrubs at the rear of my home’s backyard — maybe something like Christy at Confessions of a Serial DIYer did. I will keep you posted!
I’d love to add some plants or perennials to the border that sits at the rear of our backyard.
Happy gardening!
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Looks great, Lauren!
Thanks, Lela! Thanks to you, Rob and your mom for my newest flowers! I don’t remember what the red flower is called, though!
Nicely done blog on creating a garden. The red flower, a red lobelia, is called cardinal flower. It likes to be watered and tolerates shade. It has a cousin called the greater blue obelia, that is shorter. Both are fond of starting babies in the area. Some I pull out, maybe replant elsewhere, and some I just let stay and I enjoy them, especially when the hummingbirds are coming to the red onesl. They are perennials, can use some mulch around them in winter but uncover in spring. I now vacuum and grind up fall leaves with a Toro leaf vac and with chicken wire or hardware cloth I have several circle storage bins at the edge of the yard that make nourishing mulch for all my plants. It is a lot of work, but worth it to me. I would be glad to share more plants with you, depending on what you need, hosts for shade, purple coneflowers and sedum autumn joy for sun. Let me know when you are coming this way and I will try to have them ready. Sue
Thanks so much for the tips, Sue! I love visiting you and your gardens — I think you have the best gardens, ever! Hope we can get together soon. Our families have such a great time together. I have a leaf blower that has a vacuum capability — I will have to check out whether it can shred leaves for me, too. I think it might even be a Torro. Thanks again!
Flowers and landscaping make such a difference around a home!! yours came out great! thank you for linking up to the before and after party!!
Karah @ thespacebetweenblog recently posted…get PRIMED for fall with a $300 gift card thanks to KILZ