It looks like a real house!

So, after ripping out the landscaping from the previous owners... 

a year later, it is complete.

Let's go back to where we started.

I'm sorry it's not the best picture, but it'll have to do. When we bought the house in November 2010, there were two bushes, two small trees, and a bunch of red brick landscaping edgers that didn't match the house in the slightest. Don't forget to notice that the bushes are only evenly spaced, not centered under the windows. As if the front of our house needed more awkwardness to add to it's flat facade. 

Jumping forward to March of 2011, we were gung ho about giving the front of our house a face lift. 

We ripped everything out, replanting the foliage elsewhere. 

The edgers also bit the dust. See?

Then for whatever reason, it took 12 months to revisit this project. 

(a pregnancy, maybe?) I apologize if you visited our home in this time frame, as it looked like a hick family lived here with no landscaping (and for a few months, a car on jack stands- sorry, babe). I also decided to tackle it alone this time while Chris is deployed. It'll be a nice little something for him to come home to. 

First, I drew up a landscaping plan. Don't laugh. It came as no surprise to my mother when I mentioned I drew one up. She'll back me up when I say that every time I rearranged my room as a kid, I drew a plan (to scale, of course) for the new furniture placement. I still do. [See house layout below that I made on floorplan.com].

After determining the number of plants I needed to acquire, mom and I set off to Lowes. (Can't ignore that military discount!) I purchased a Pink Flowering Almond for the end of the bed, 5 Big Twister Rush grasses, and 2 Firepower Nandina bushes. I also have a handful of Liatris and 'Blue' (which I think is a Balloon flower) bulbs to plant here and there. 

After setting the edging and adding some good topsoil, I set out my plants to check my locations.

I planted everything, making sure to add in some Miracle Gro soil. 

The final step was to add mulch. I used newspaper as my weed barrier after seeing it posted on Pinterest a hundred times. Doesn't it look beautiful??

Now we just have to wait for the bulbs to come up to add some color, and for the bushes to fill out a bit more! I'm also planning on adding a trellis between the windows for some Morning Glories. I'm pleased as punch.

You probably noticed the 4x4 post on the right side of the bed. That's my new flagpole. Chris and I had a bracket on the house that kept loosening and was about to fall off, so this was my solution. And yes, I set it in concrete. I can't wait to get the bracket up and give the flag some air! 

What do you think? An improvement?! :)