Weekly Front Garden 04/21/2012

This is the start of the third year for my front garden. Since the saying is "first year - sleep, 2nd year - creep, 3rd year - leap", I thought it would be interesting to take a weekly picture from about the same spot and see how the garden changes. Someday, I'll do a more detailed post about how it got to where it is, but for now, I want to see where it's going.

I'm going to post these posts on Wednesdays and Sundays until I get caught up, then just on Wednesdays.

To start - on 04/21/2012, the front garden looked like this:

You can see some left over daffodils in the back (right), by the cherry tree (whose top is cut off in the picture). They don't last much past April around here, but they are supposed to be one of the few spring bulbs that will come back year after year. I guess we'll see next year!

The dominant feature right now is the purple ice plant, either Lampranthus spectabilis or Delosperma cooperi. Judging by the bloom time, L. spectabilis is more likely, but its not supposed to be hardy in Zone 11, says Sunset, which these ones definitely are. D. cooperi is hardy here, but is only supposed to be 3 inches tall (these are way taller than that) and blooms in summer (these don't).

The front garden also depends on ornamental grasses, besides the stupid lawn that will go away one day, but they've all been recently cut back, so they're not as noticeable right now.