As mentioned previously, there is a big rock in my front yard named Smedley. His purpose is to anchor the new landscaping that is the replacement for a grass lawn. After the 2011 drought the St. Augustine grass was decimated. Mother Nature was trying to make a point and I'm trying to pay attention. We have also been in Stage 2 Water Restriction since that time.
This part of central Texas is pretty rocky in general and Smedley has a lot of local relatives available to hang with him. Along with Smedley and gang there are an assortment of annuals and perennials scattered about the front yard. Right now there is culinary sage, yellow puccoon, purple sage, orange bulbine, lantanas, daylilies, Pride of Barbados, dwarf fountain grass, purslane, blue daze, rosemary, lavender, tick seed, verbena, dianthus, nandina, dwarf Burford holly, yaupon holly, ligustrum, blue plumbago, crepe myrtle, desert willow, live oak and a Europena rose bush.
This is Smedley surrounded by assorted perennials. The line of wine colored daylilies on the backside started blooming in early May and still has a bit to go now at the end of June. The maximum number of blooms at a single time was twenty-six. I think there was a 2 week period that had at least 20 blossoms each day. A sweet bonus was that I bought these in the fall of 2011 marked down to $2 each and let them languish in 4" pots for 8 months before planting. More luck than I deserve.
The above photo is from June 28. This side of my front yard is a wedge shape due to its position on the outside of a sharp curve. The lighter concrete strip was recently added to the side of the driveway to overcome the inconvenience of stepping onto the mud/dirt/grass/etc. when exiting the car. Those white limestone blocks are 4" thick and 8" tall (sunk halfway into the ground).
The shrubs on the left and rear of the photo have been around for several years but the central plantings are from the spring/summer of 2012. The culinary sage (left, front) was a 4" plant a year ago but is now overgrowing the limestone blocks. The orange flowering Pride of Barbados towards the right rear is also in danger of hanging over the concrete walkway. I swear the hardest thing is to anticipate the proper spacing and placement of plants. This blog will soon feature a section on "oops" moments that will include errors in plant placement.
One oops I worked hard to avoid in the front yard is sun exposure errors. The image above is around noon. The sun comes up behind the house (top right). These plants in the foreground all have full sun requirements and they get it. The area between the live oak and house is shaded until late morning then gets varying shade for most of the remainder of the day. Sunset shoots right into the windows on the front of the house.
The driveway slopes a bit down toward the house and rain runoff flows from right to left about where those white limestone blocks curve to the left. The current plan is to put in a faux-creek across the front of the house that will actually route water when it rains.
