{Side Yard} Front Side Yard

As we continue to move the cactus garden to a real garden, we needed to find places throughout our yard that could use the rock "mulch" without being too big of an issue (as in cost a lot of money or be a lot work). After putting some rock in our big front bed, by the Big Rock, and the two beds in Lily's garden, we needed another place. There was a lot of rock!!

So for those that don't know our yard, this is the south side (or right side as you're looking at the house) of our front yard. The rock is right next to our front porch and the sidewalk goes back to our back yard and the fence, plus it's near all the irises shown below.

This area of our yard is not dealt with at all. The bush on the left grows like crazy but does have pretty flowers on it. It may still come up though and be replaced with a lilac from my parents that was my grandmothers (and I think it's white, which helps with the whole white garden theme I want for the front yard). There is some ivy in all of this and I want to keep the English ivy. The other type could all die and I'd be happy.

You can see in the picture that we had some containers to hold up the dirt from the big raised bed in the front of our house and I haven't planted them yet. The black shephard's hook held a small bird feeder last year but our neighbor's cats keep the birds away. I'd like to have a hummingbird feeder but may just do a small hanging planter.

Another angle of the bed... this one shows the English ivy growing up the side of the house. The white bar is the side of our porch.

We bought the 10 retaining wall stones at Menard's for a reasonable price (can't remember, less than $2 each though) and 10 stones were enough to hold the rock in. It's not the prettiest thing but once there are some flowers in there and the yard can get trimmed up around it, it'll be just fine. We mainly needed the stones to hold in the rocks so that it wouldn't wash into our yard every time it rains, causing trouble for Doug when he mows.

The irises along the sidewalk (pictured more above) that go between our front yard and back yard. These can be seen out of Lily's bedroom, our TV room, and the front bedroom.