Part 3 – Spring Front Yard Garden Tour & How It Evolved Over the Years

Join me as I give you an April tour of a few flowerbeds located in the front yard / west side of my rural New Hampshire zone 5b garden. Parts 1 and 2 (linked below) will be include other areas of my yard. Right now, I have Hellebores, Fumewort / Corydalis solida ‘Beth Evans’, Daffodils and Glory of the Snow / Chionodoxa / chionodoxa luciliae, and Muscari / Grape Hyacinths blooming or budded up. I flashback to what those garden spaces looked like 20 years ago and how they evolved and transformed over the years. Landscape design and garden transformation is a very big part of gardening. I also go over some of my plans for changing up these spaces.

Other plants also mentioned in this video include chrysanthemums / mums, daylilies, heuchera / coral bells, lamb’s ear, lupine / lupin, leopard’s bane / doronicum, cranesbill geranium, iris, aster, sedum, cardinal flower / lobelia, and montauk daisy.

Please Subscribe to my channel and hit the notification bell so that you don’t miss new videos as they get released. Also, be sure to check out all my older videos as there is a lot of great information on my channel!
______________

Have a gardening question or an idea for future videos? Leave a comment below and let’s chat!

📷 Follow me on Instagram for updates, announcements, and pictures of my gardens: https://www.instagram.com/budgetgardeningvita/

#spring #garden #flowers #gardening #gardentour #landscapedesign #gardentransformation #gardenmakeover #GardeningInspiration #FrontYard #backyard #vegetablegarden #zone5b

Hey budget gardeners, Vita Loki here. Join me today as we do part three of my spring garden tour. So let’s [Music] go. For the first garden tour of the season, I wanted to do it a little bit differently. I made a three-part series. This is part three in the series. If you missed parts one and two, I’ll link them down below as well as at the end of this video. I’m basically taking sections of my yard. I’m showing you what they look like right now, which is not a lot because I live in New Hampshire. I I garden in USDA zone 5B. Things are just barely waking up, but I wanted to take the opportunity to basically bring you back in time during the last 20 years and show you how different flower beds in my yard have evolved. So, now I’m going to show you the gardens that I have in my front yard. So, we’re going to leave the backyard and we’re going to head towards the front yard. And the front yard is basically the west side of my house. Again, you can see there are a lot of hookra, a lot of [Music] daffodils. By the time I do my next garden tour, a lot of these daffodils will start blooming. I really am enjoying the view of my backyard now that these trees are gone. It just really opens things up. One thing I’m noticing is when I look this way, I’d like to make the flower bed a little more uniform when it comes to edging. It’s kind of jagged right now and I’d like it not to be so jagged. And that’s something easy I can do. Even if, you know, I don’t tackle other big projects, just to come in here and make a nice clean edge I think would look really nice. I couldn’t really think of doing that before because of all the trees that were in here. Remember earlier I had mentioned I bought two hellaores and I showed you the one that was in the backyard. So here is the other one. Isn’t that really pretty? And you can see at the base of the plant it’s a very small plant and that’s because right near it is another plant. This one may not bloom. I can’t tell but it is alive and that’s the key. So, there’s technically two plants here. You can see that it’s over there. And I just moved down a little bit. And here’s another division from that plant. And since we divided it last year, it may or may not bloom this year. And that’s okay. The key is that it survived. And if it doesn’t bloom this year, it should bloom next year. And in fact, right here as well as right there are more divisions of hella. And I’m excited to see that because I divided them down. They survived the winter and they should do fine. They should survive and then they’ll should bloom for us next year. And here’s the last of the hella boards I have in my yard. It’s buted up. It’s not blooming quite yet. It is just buted up, but this is quint. And it is so pretty when it blooms. You can see how beautiful the little buds look. And when it blooms, they look like little miniature roses on the flowering quence. Here in the front yard, again, there are a lot of flower beds where the lawn ends and where the woods begin, where I’ve basically pushed the woods out and turned them into flower beds. We worked on this flower bed together last year. So, there’s a whole bunch of stuff that’s just coming up. A lot of sedum. There are daffodils in here. There is cardinal flower there. Even some GM towards the front. You can see a whole bunch of hooka that we put in last year. And the hookah just repeat over and over again because they’re the same hookah that I have in my yard that I just keep taking divisions from. There are a couple of Stelladoro dillies that are in here. There are a whole bunch of different things. So over time, I will definitely keep you updated once this starts filling in. Let’s keep heading down this way. Lots of things in here as well. I have come in and cleaned up this bed quite a bit already. Towards the front of this bed is lamb’s ear. We had divided it together and moved them in this area. There are a bunch of dillies. There are a bunch of daffodils that are budded up. And then I want to say two years ago, I moved divided and moved a whole bunch of great pyins. They’re all just starting to come up. It’s really going to look pretty this year. The daffodils each year have looked prettier and prettier, but this is, I think, their year to really shine. There are so many buds on each little grouping of daffodils. I feel like my garden has stories that go behind it. And I like sharing the stories and I hope you don’t mind me sharing the stories. I want to talk about these daffodils. I know what you’re thinking. You’re going to say, “Yeah, yeah, we know you got them from your mother-in-law’s house.” No. Kind of, but no. Here’s the story behind pretty much all the daffodils that are in my front yard. And I keep them separate because I want to remember the story. and I don’t want to mix them up with other daffodils. Here’s the story. There was an area across the street from where my mother-in-law lived where she used to throw all her debris that she didn’t want to compost. And she was very good, very clean about where she put all that debris. Anyway, my point is with all of this, there was this whole area of daffodils that were coming up. And my sister-in-law and I didn’t understand why those daffodils were there. It was like a sea, a living sea of daffodils. Really beautiful. And they’re just like in an area where not just she, but other people would just throw out any sort of yard waste that they don’t want. So, ever since 2018 when my mother-in-law passed away, every year I go back to that area and I dig up some of the daffodils to bring to my yard because it makes me happy. It makes me think of her. Her name was Sue. And I’m not sure why the daffodils were there. I can’t ask her why, but I like having them in my yard. It makes me happy and I know it makes my husband happy as well. And so that was in about 2018 is when I started digging up the daffodils and I’ve gone back every year now. Most of the daffodils are gone. They’re here. Um but anyway, uh as I would dig them up, I would divide them and there were some bulbs that were nice and big and then there were many bulbs that were small. And that’s why every year since then the the groupings there weren’t that many blooms in them because as I would divide them there were some super small bulbs in there. And whenever I would plant them in here I would always plant it so that there were maybe two or three that were biggeriz bulbs and then a whole bunch that were smallerized bulbs. And I spaced them out so that they had room to grow because you know how daffodils are you have to divide them every few years otherwise they stop producing for you. So, that’s the story behind the daffodils in my front yard. And uh the only thing my sister-in-law and I can think about is the possibility that maybe Sue did not like that color of the daffodil. They were like the lighter yellow color daffodil. They weren’t your traditional dark yellow. So, maybe she threw a couple out there and they just naturalized over time. But, it was weird because they were like in a big section and they really were in the woods. I mean, no one would ever see them and notice them. So, it’s I don’t I have a hard time believing that she purposely planted them there to enjoy them. Anyway, that’s the story behind the daffodils in my front yard. Hello, little grape pyins. I had divided and moved a whole bunch of great pyins. I want to say two years ago, and I moved them all around my yard. This will be the year that I think they’ll start to look kind of pretty. And I I moved them on either side of each clump of daffodil that are in this bed. So you can see the clumps that are on either side. And I think that will look really pretty, the purple with the yellow. Look at all the daffodils. Oh, this makes me so happy. They’re just going to look so pretty when they bloom. Towards the back of the bed are iris. And they are a purple color iris. And another little happy surprise near my iris. What are you doing there? I’m going to have to move you. It looks like another type of glory of the snow. Not the the ones that I’ve shown you already. I think it’s a pink color or a light purple color. So, I just showed you all the daffodils that are in this section here. And as we head basically, we’re now heading in my front yard. We’re heading towards my driveway. And this flower bed here, I like to call the half circle or semicircle flower bed. I’ve also called it the lilac bed. There is a lilac tree over there. [Music] Towards the front of this bed are just a whole bunch of creeping flocks. I’m pretty sure they’re a light purple color. And I put them in here. I divided them and moved them in here probably three years ago. I believe this will be the year they put on a really good show. Since I divided them down to very small pieces, it’s taken them a while to recover. And then just other things that are in here are pennial mums, yellow color, that I’ll be dividing. There are purple aster. There are stellidoro dillies as well as other kinds of dillies that I moved in here last year. And then more of the daffodils. That’s what you see back there. I’m really trying hard in my beds to really get that spring color going as I wait for the perennials to wake up. And that’s a huge reason why I like to divide a lot of my spring bulbs and move them around the yard. But while I’m doing that, I’m also taking notes on, okay, right now nothing is blooming in this bed. So maybe I need to add something in here. Not quite sure what though. In this bed is where I originally had the fume wart, those little pink flowers. And it’s just you don’t notice it from far away. So, I need something that blooms early in the spring, but that’s taller. And maybe just the the answer is daffodils. And I just have to wait. Let’s head down that way. I should call this my driveway bed. I like naming beds just so I can refer to them. So, in the driveway bed, we worked on this last year, but I’m going to pop up on the screen how the driveway bed has changed over the last many years when it wasn’t even a driveway bed. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] The daffodils from the woods continue here and they have quite a few buds on them as well. And I just have some nice small groupings of them. But then other than the daffodils that are in here, the other thing that’s in here are just more of the, you guessed it, glory of the snow. Those are just tucked in towards the back. And while I’m looking at it, I’m kind of thinking that I probably should move them forward. They’re tucked in a little too close to the grass. So, I might end up doing that. But for this year, I’ll enjoy them when they bloom. I think they’ll look nice. But I think it would look a lot better if I maybe pull them out a little bit. Even if they were on the either side of the daffodils. So, there’s a clump here and a clump there of the glory of the snow. I think they’ll still look pretty when they bloom regardless. They’ll add some nice color in here. So, we’ve been making our way to the driveway bed. And the one thing I want to show you down along either side of my driveway are some daffodils. They’re not blooming yet, but there are quite a few buds on them. Mr. Budget Gardener was super thrilled. He said, “Did you see the daffodils?” I’m like, “Yep, more daffodils from Grandma’s Woods.” So, we have some there. And they’re just small little clusters all the way down to the end of the driveway. And the same thing is mimicked up along the other side of the driveway. And as you come up my driveway on the right here is my I’m going to call it front yard, front yard, backyard, whatever you want to call it, plant nursery. I promise you I will be making a video soon. I know I keep saying that, but I do need to come out here and I need to basically do cleanup and maintenance like you would in a regular perennial bed. So, I will be coming out here next week. That’s my goal because the fine the nice weather is finally going to be here. And I’m going to be cleaning up perennials. And what I think I’m going to do with you is as I clean up a section of pennials, I will show you what the plant is. That way you know all the plants that are in my plant nursery and there are many plants that still haven’t woken up. So, I’ll just show you the ones that have woken up and we’ll get at it and we’ll clean up the plant nursery. The final place I’m going to bring you is up along my walkway. And I will tell you right here next to my garage are a whole bunch of blackeyed Susan or Rebecca. I just need to come in and clean those. And as we head this way, this is what I call my pansy bed. And I’m going to show you why I call them pansies. They very well could be Johnny jumpups. I but I think they’re pansies. Nevertheless, they’re very sweet. And I’ve mentioned this in videos before that no matter how many pansies I start from seed, the ones that self sew out here in this pansy bed just to me at least bloom quicker and just are much stronger. So I really enjoy them and I don’t think they overwinter. I used to say that they overwinter. I think it’s that they bloom and then they drop their seeds and then they create new little seedlings in the middle of the summer and those seedlings are what survive the winter. And I love coming in here and shopping for pansies. I have a lot of hanging baskets to make. I think we need to do that next week as well. And we’re going to pack them with pansies. My whole front walkway has changed a lot over the last 20 years. I’m going to give you a sneak peek at how it’s changed. [Music] I’ve given up on pruning back or cutting back these roodendrrons. And I mentioned last year I’d like to move them. I need to research that more because I want to make sure I’m moving them at the right time. And I have some plans on what I want to do once those get removed. Up along the walkway are a lot of spring bulbs. Mostly there are a ton of the gray hyestence and you can see they’re all just starting to come up. And years ago I literally started with like a small little section of them and I just keep dividing and moving them around. And when they bloom, I will show you they just put on such a great show. And also up along the walkway other than the great pyestence are more of the beautiful spring lark spur or we also call it fummore. Look how interesting it looks when it’s all buted up along the front walkway. They’re just a little bit more behind than on my sidewalk. So when they’re butted up, this is what they look like. Very cool. Very neat. And then as we continue up the front walkway, we basically are heading towards what I call the bay window bed. And I’m now going to pop up on the screen what the bay window bed has looked like over the last 20 years. [Music] [Music] [Music] Another plant that is also starting to pop up along my front walkway is an ephemeral plant and it’s called bloodroot and I have it all along the front walkway. Things are really waking up in the bay window bed. I’m going to take you in and show you some really interesting cool things. One of the first perennials that’s not a bulb to bloom in my yard is this one over here. And this is called leopard’s vein. It’s a very very pretty yellow daisy type flower. And I have a whole bunch of them. I’ve again I’ve divided them and moved them all around. And what I like about them in this bed specifically is that because they are yellow color, I don’t like to then mix them with daffodils. I want them to put on a great show because they bloom a little bit before the daffodils do in my yard. And so I want to just have them stand out. I don’t want them to compete with yellow daffodils. And that’s why I’ve divided and lined up this perennial all around this bay window bed. And if I step back, you can see the large clumps of the leopard’s bane. And towards the front of each of those clumps, the grassy texture there, those are Stelloro dlies. And then in front of the Stellodoro dillies are a whole bunch of the cranes bell deranium. I like for this flower bed to be a little bit more formal. It’s gone through a lot of different iterations and because it is the front of the house and it’s the front walkway, I want it to be a little bit more formal. But I have also played with the idea of turning it kind of into a cottage garden. So I need to think a little bit more about how I want to do that. But one thing I have talked about in the past is that guy right over there, that boxwood, I want to remove that because it just doesn’t look good. And there’s a place that I’m going to put it in my yard so it’s not going to go to waste. So I need to think a little bit more about what I want to do in this bed. But I think that I do want to still keep the perennials that are here. and then see what else I want to add in this bed. The big thing is right here, our septic tank is underneath here. So, I can’t plant anything right along that area there. Look at all the growth on this perennial. This is called Montalk Daisy. I showed you last spring my process for taking cutings on this and rooting them. It is super easy to root this plant. So, you better believe it. I’ll be coming in here and taking a whole bunch of cutings and rooting them. That’s the reason why I didn’t cut this pineal back in the fall because I knew that I wanted to turn each of these segments into cutings. Can anyone guess what seedling this is? Well, I’m going to tell you. It is a loopin. And I have loopin seedlings all over this bed, which is another reason why I’ve mentioned I’d like to turn this into a cottage garden. I mean, look how sweet that little seedling is. And then there’s another one right nearby over here. The last thing I’m going to show you is up along my front walkway. And it’s basically my pond. The pond has been here for a number of years, but I’m going to pop up on the screen now how this area has changed over the years. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] When it comes time to cleaning the pond, I’ll bring you along. Just in case you have a pond or you’re thinking of creating a pond, I just want to show you our process for getting the pond ready for the season. I hope these videos inspired you or motivated you in some way. They motivate me to just get out there and do something I really enjoy doing. Until the next video, make it a great day with gardening.