Second half of the front bed

After a good full week of hard work, my front garden bed is done! I have pulled up grass and weeds until I literally broke my garden claw. I have laid miles of weed cloth and over 40 bags of mulch. I have dug 25 holes in solid rock (okay, my boys dug half the holes, but I still dug a good dozen).  And here it is!! 

I am pretty pleased with the results!  Many of the plants were the ones I had originally selected, and some of them are even in the same spots I had planned.  But I moved a bunch around.

I planted an Esperanza near the middle, with a salvia a little to the  right.

I planted three black foot daisies to hopefully drape over the edge of the wall. These are one of my favorite flowers.  Unfortunately, one of the other three I planted on the left side of the bed has already died. I will have to replace it next week :o(  Hopefully these will be a little more hardy.

Behind the daisies you can see one of the three century plants I was given. They are very small now - in fact, even in the close up picture, you can still only really see one of them, but they should get all big and impressive. 

One of the best things about building this bed was being in the front yard. All of my previous beds were made in the back.  While working in the front, neighbors would frequently stop by and chat and comment on how the bed was coming along, which was fun! (did I mention I was out there for *hours*)  

At one point a neighbor asked if I'd like some of his century plants to put in the bed.  These Texas-tough plants are beautiful in shape and size, (and frequently adorned with Christmas balls during the holidays).  I excitedly said yes, and a few days later found three of them placed on my driveway. I had to look up the official name of these plants, which is "Agave Americana" (so see, Mom - I did plant some agaves :o) !)

Further down the bed, I purchased a flame acanthus. This was not part of my original plan, but these plants are drought tolerant - and Lowe's had them.  I purchased my first set of plants from the Natural Gardener, my nursery of choice.  But given the scope of the bed, I decided to see what Lowe's had to offer. Their selection of Texas natives was much more limited, but those they had were significantly cheaper than NG.  

Next to the flame acanthus are some more of my artemisia.  Four of them in a diamond pattern.  These plants are so brittle when I plant them, that I am forever breaking off branches... so we'll see how many of these little guys make it.  Again, they were on clearance at Lowe's for $0.50, so I was willing to take a chance.

Behind and to the right of the artemisia is my Duranta Skyflower.  I have this same plant in a planter in the back yard.  And even being in an unprotected planter, it has wintered through two of our coldest winters and hottest summers.  It didn't remain evergreen in the winter (which they are supposed to), but it came back and bloomed beautifully.  So this is one of the plants I am really looking forward to!  It should fill out to be eight to ten feel tall!

Further down toward the end of the bed, I planted three Copper Canyon Daisies.  I was going to plant the Four Nerve Daisies I used on the left hand side, but Lowe's didn't have any, and these have a great fragrance and are very drought tolerant as well. I still love the look of the four nerve daisies (hymenoxys) bobbing along the hill, so I might still find a place for three more of them somewhere in the future.

Behind the daisies is another knock out rose. And down in the very corner are three trailing white lantana.  I had avoided lantana because the bed behind it has a bunch of yellow lantana, but I was looking for a white trailing flower, and Natural Gardener recommended this one.  I thought I'd give it a chance.

And here you can see from the other side my lantana, with the second twisted leaf yucca that I transplanted. I debated whether I wanted to try another transplant, as the first one has a bunch of brown outer leaves since transplanting it... but the inner leaves are bright green and might even be showing some new growth.  So I decided to go ahead and give it another try.

There is one plant I have left to plant, and it is the Aloe Delta Lights that Dave purchased for me at NG.  It will go in the empty blue pot on the left hand side.

So here it is in its entirety.  

After

Before