Front Yard Re-Do

I spend a lot of time focusing on my vegetable beds (because they FEED us!) and the perennial borders in the backyard (because that's what WE look at!). My front yard is a little neglected (by my standards) and part of the reason is that it's a combination of one large bed in full sun and another large bed that's in more shade. I'm really really really good at gardening in full sun, but shade? I don't know what to do. Silly, yes, but it's the truth. So the one front bed has been a little lot ugly the past couple of years. So ugly, in fact, that I don't even have any photos of it! I scrounged through my photo hard drive and came up with these photos, taken in Spring (when *anyone* can garden!). 

The is a view from my driveway. We are facing north and the bed in the foreground is my full sun (and fully landscaped) bed. Farther back you see the neighbor's MUCH too large pine and in front of that, my orange poppies and some lavender cranesbill, both in my partial sun bed. 

This is my awesome hosta "Guacamole." It's really the best thing growing in that partial sun bed. It's massive and isn't highlighted very well.  

Here's an early summer shot, standing in the driveway & facing north. This is a dogwood tree that  died down to the graft and sprouted up as whatever tree is the root graft. It has not bloomed and it's outta here, to be replaced by a pear tree. In the background, you can see my partial shade garden, with a really hideous Scotch-type pine tree place there by the previous homeowners. (um, yeah, that was 14 years ago...). Brad ripped that bad boy outta there. Nice tree-wrong location. 

Here's the best view of that partial shade bed in front of my house. This is from last year, again, we're facing north. You can see my neighbor's horrible pine tree in the background. This is a late May shot, my sedum "Kamshaticam" is in bloom in the foreground, with an unknown dianthus in bloom next to it. My old-fashioned orange poppies are blooming and my hostas are all up. Yes, that is a windmill. Yes, it might be tacky--but Brad is Dutch! Behind it is a shrub (unknown) that I ripped out last year. You can see an aborvitae in the top right corner (that's a "cedar" if you're Canadian). It's going, too. This right here is the best this garden looks. Might I add that this is a May shot, so for the rest of the summer it looks blechy. 

Here's what this lovely garden looks like this morning, after a couple hours of me ripping it apart. I had Brendan & Brad help me move the rocks. 

It's basically a huge mess right now. Last summer I ripped out a bunch of lily of the valley (nice plant, wrong location) and realized that the biggest problem with this bed is that it is graded back towards the house (again, blame the previous homeowners...). It was really hard for me to pull out & repot so many plants, knowing that I"m interrupting their grow cycle & they might not bloom.

I've got a plan to redo the kidney shape of this bed and maybe use the rocks around our mature maple tree that is out front. The bed will be filled with plants I already have and a few I'll need to purchase, but it will have a cottage garden feel to it.

Update--April 23--

I got almost all of the plants transplanted into pots or beds and also dug out the arborvitae. I'm leaving my poppies intact and will try to work around them because I know they won't bloom if we dig them up--and they're so full this year!

Here's the photo update:

The remaining plants you see in the ground are going to be discarded.. Brad made me come in last night before I could finish up! The hose sorta marks the new, larger kidney bean shape of the bed.

Such a mess I made! You can see the root ball of the arborvitae on the right side of the photo. 

The view from the front porch-it's really opened up now! Me likey =)