Not the Yard of the Month

Our cute little neighborhood association holds a yard of the month competition each month from April until October.  Seth and I are in no danger of winning that award.  I am slightly embarrassed to admit that our yard has only gotten worse since that post.  Really, it's not so much my fault.  This summer has been hotter than hell and dry.  That did nothing to improve our yard.  So that leaves us where we started, with a big blank scrubby looking yard...

See?  Well, really not see?  There is nothing except leaves and a scant layer of pine needles.  Sigh.

But don't disgrace- there is a vision...

Okay, so clearly this is my house and yard.  Stop laughing.  I know you're just jealous of my mad paint skills.

So lets start with what we have.  Starting left, Seth and I planted a whole bunch of lilies and glads, which are great, but they bloom for about 2 weeks and then dry up.  Sad face.  We then have 2 camellias, pretty evenly spaced in the yard.  We also have a dogwood.  We have a poor hydrangea planted on the other side of the dogwood.  Baby gets too much harsh sun.  In front of the hydrangea, we have some (8ish, 10ish) day lilies planted.

A quick note on why things are hard to grow in our yard.  Our house is oriented towards the south.  Which is a good thing, normally.  However, our nice, old, established neighborhood is full of nice old, established, massive trees.  These trees block the sun until about 3pm.  And then our yard gets full on  southern summer sun until dark.  Just imagine staying in your nice cool air conditioned house and the running outside, naked with no protection and standing in the dead heat until dark.  You ass would be fried and so are our plants.

So with that in mind, onto the planting plan...  Starting on the right this time, we are going to move the hydrangea to a more protected space.  We will then fill in that spot with some roses.  Roses are actually pretty hardy and afternoon sun helps prevent certain types of mildew.  In front of the roses, we will fill in with more day lilies.  The hydrangea will move to the fence line between the two camellias.  Two more hydrangeas will be added so that no one gets lonely.  In front of the hydrangeas, we will fill in with hostas.  I know this seems risky given our sun situation.  But, hostas can be pretty sun tolerant and because a big branch from the oak tree hangs over this area, I think they should be a-okay.  That brings us all the way to the left, which I haven't totally figured out yet.  Right now I am thinking a mixture of coneflowers...

And just to keep you in suspense, I can reveal that Seth and I have spent the last 2 weekends planting.  Check back early next week for the results.