The plan here is to go with the flow – there are a lot of spots in the front yard that just do not want to grow grass. We do not particularly care to mow grass. It’s all good! Because the front yard is pretty enormous, this will be done in stages, a little each year, but here’s my first project in lawn elimination:

Not so bad, eh?

We’ll be visiting my mother tomorrow for Mother’s day, and I know for certain that she’ll have some volunteer plants she’ll be happy to donate. Some malva, a few different kinds of ferns, who knows? Right now, I’ve been going to the various local garden centers looking for treasures, and I’ve found a few. There’s a little place called The Cedar Post in Lakehurst, on 70 just west of the intersection with 37. It’s small, but the plants were all healthy, and the prices were very good. This place also sells fruits and vegetables, which will be nice when Jersey corn comes into season – I’ve never done well growing it on my own. These plants, though, came from Berry Fresh Farms on Brick Boulevard in Brick. If I were shopping for price, this would not be my first stop, but it’s huge, has a varied selection of really healthy plants, and also sells fruits and vegetables, plus some baked goods. From them, I got the bicolor Scotch Broom on the left, the cream colored Rhododendron, the purple Tradescantia, and the barely visible Gaura. The Azaleas were transplanted from the back yard. I also found what looks like a Rugosa Rose in the middle of all of this, tamed to a tiny mound by a lawnmower. No more – I left it to grow as it likes. The broom, rhododendron, and azaleas will all get taller and wider. The Artemisia will stay low and spread. The Tradescantia is a bulb – it’ll spread, and as it becomes dense, I can pull up patches and transplant them. The Gaura self-seeds like mad, which might be a nuisance in a smaller space, but I love the way it looks.

When the vegetable garden starts to look more like a garden and less like a swath of brown with little green specks, I’ll put up some pictures of that, too. And when the blueberries get taller and raspberries get put in and start to grow, we’ll have edible landscaping by the ton. I’ve put herbs in with the rest of the plants, with mint, cilantro, fenugreek, and parsley under the azaleas in back, some thyme by the pond, and some in the front along with the sage and rosemary. Somewhere, there’s a cantaloupe seedling, too.

The tree service is supposed to come on Monday. There are two trees in the back that need to come down. The big parts will become firewood for next year. The branches will become wood chips, which the tree guys will be leaving for me, and they’ll become compost and mulch for later on. After they’re down, there’ll be room for me to build a little stone patio by the pond from the slates that are scattered all over the yard (and the ugly white rocks, too) and plant some more between the tree and shrubs in the corner of pool and patio. I hate that doing it myself takes so long, but I love seeing the end result and knowing that it was done by me. And once I’m off my antibiotics, I’ll sit down with a glass of wine by the plants and enjoy the view.