Feb 1, 2010

The area in front of our house is huge and difficult to maintain. The hill slopes and we've struggled with what to plant there. We'd like something that requires almost no maintenance. More importantly we don't want to plant anything that needs much watering as we have two, giant oak trees in the front. Other than rain, we were told they shouldn't be watered at all in order to prevent fungus and disease.This weekend C cleaned off the slope, got rid of a massive tree stump and we cast around fistfuls of wildflower and poppy seeds. We hope to have our own field of wildflowers in front of the house.
And from a few weeks back, some new plantings in front of the new porch:
Madagascar Jasmine we received as a wedding present:
Pride of Madeira, C's holiday gift from my brother:
Two Lilac vines:
Elli watched it all from her favorite look-out spot on the front porch.
C finally had a chance to pull out the chainsaw and get it cleaned up. The Oakland zoo recently got into some trouble for cutting down acacias to feed the elephants. Apparently they didn't have the right to chop down the trees and now the elephants no longer have their favorite snack. We plan on donating our felled acacias to the elephants. We have more wild acacias than we can handle. They grow everywhere at an alarmingly fast rate.

4 comments:

Joslyn said...

that is going to be insanely pretty...what a great idea.

the house looks fantastic.

and the acacias...so nice!

xo

lilcis said...

You should plant some succulents - I love how they look on a hill! I'd by a few different types that you like the look of and plant them all then see what starts spreading out the fastest. We did that in our front planter box (in SoCal)and it turns out only one really took off. So this spring we'll buy more of that guy.

caroline duke said...

this talk of wildflowers and poppies in front of your house just sold me. i need to live there, too.

karey m. said...

succulants, too. yes! brilliant.

and i can seriously smell the lilac and jasmine from here.

it looks stunning. my father-in-law would say you've got some good curb appeal. did i tell you this already? i think it's funny.

xoxo.