When we bought our house in March 2006, the front garden was a tiny patch of dying grass, dirt, and rocks. Now we have a mass of carpet roses, lavender, dusty miller, creeping thyme, creeping jenny, phlox, purple-leaf sand cherry, boxwood, petunias, sweet potato vines, vinca, lady’s mantle, and, and, and…!

I never knew just how much I love being outside. My past experimentations with plants have been less than fruitful, so it’s quite gratifying to see that even the blackest of thumbs can learn a thing or two. There are still some patches I need to fill in (it’s tricky to find plants that can survive full sun all day long), but it’s definitely getting there. I can’t wait to see how it will look in a few years when the boxwood has grown and spread!