One advantage of being mostly locked down during this nightmare hell-year year was that I got to work on my landscaping. Now you all get to look at pictures and hear me drone on about it. (In actual fact I've been working on this since we moved in over thirteen years ago; there are only a couple of plants in these pictures that I didn't plant.)


Our front yard as seen from the street.


The left side of the front yard, with masses of Mexican primrose flanking the end of the front walk.


Our front fountain, flanked by the ubiquitous (at least in West Virginia) Stella D'oro daylilies.Behind the fountain you can see one of my rain barrels (why let the gutter water go to waster?) On both sides of the front yard can be seen the new ground cover I planted this year, miniature purple wintercreeper.


The right side of my front yard, under the shade of my infamous Japanese maple. That's a cool spot to sit and read, even in August. In the back are some firecracker bushes (which aren't doing very well due to the shade - the maple was only supposed to grow eight feet tall, not twenty!) and a shrub that I actually didn't plant myself (I think it's a yew). The fern garden was also already there when we moved in, although I have added some ferns.


Closeup of the miniature wintercreeper. None of it was actually touching when I planted it in March, so you can see how fast it grows. It turns a reddish-purple color in the winter, hence the name.



The front yard as seen from our right (non-shared) driveway. More Stella D'oro daylilies (I told you they were ubiquitous). The lower retaining wall built in 2016 gave me an opportunity to landscape a raised planter, which I filled with blue spruce sedum.


Closeup of the blue spruce sedum. I planted it for the foilage, and had no idea (at the time that I planted it) that it would have flowers at all!

More below - I'm told the most breathtaking stuff is actually hidden from the street!