Spring Gardening

I live in Under A Shady Tree - well, actually, lots of shady trees...

This makes it hard to grow grass...

 

 We have moss and some of this pretty stuff! 

(I wish I knew what it was called because I'd plant more)

 So I focus on the garden beds.

Last year, I worked on the back yard - I laid a brick border in part of the yard and transplanted liriope to edge this garden space. This is where we have the most grass so I had to put of a folding fence so we wouldn't mow the monkey grass!  Did I mention that we have a lot of trees? Ignore all the leaves - they work as cheap (free) fall mulch for the beds and keep the backyard from being a mud pit all winter. 

This year, I started on the front bed.  I have A LOT of liriope (monkey grass) that really is beautiful and it spreads quickly so I thin it out a bit before it really starts growing.

I transplanted it to the shade garden under the front yard trees.

It doesn't look like a lot right now but liriope is one of the easier plants to transplant and takes very easily. Next year, it will be as full as the backyard edgeing (which was thinner when I planted it).

I also updated the brick raised bed on the other side of the driveway.

The 3 layer brick was constantly collapsing so I tore it down and put up a taller paver that is only a single layer - far less chance of stray bricks. In order to do this, I did have to grade the area a little bit. The bed was mostly empty - it gets some sun so it's where I plant my bright flowery annuals - so I made it a little bit smaller. Unfortunately, the plastic edging material was cracked in several places and I was unable to reuse it but I got some nice composite material and I'll be reusing the bricks in the back yard for edging material on the other side of the yard! Or maybe on the far side of the front yard - I haven't done much there yet...

add brick here (backyard)? 

or here (other side of the front yard)?

I'm unsure of what I want to do in this garden bed at the top of my driveway. I was cleaning it out the first year we moved here and I accidentally picked up a small brown garter snake thinking it was a stick - that was the last time I did anything in here, as you can see. It's full of vinca vine which is really pretty this time of year with it's purple flowers (but that spreads like crazy), lined with liriope and has a host of daylilies that don't bloom b/c they don't actually get much sun here come summer (shady trees, remember).

EDIT: I made a decision on the bricks - I put them in the front yard and will put irish moss seed down next week. Here's a photo of the bricks: