It really doesn’t take much to add a little bit of curb appeal to a home, and in our case, well, anything would have helped. As a reminder, here’s our before:
We plan to keep the flagstone porch so we decided to add some bushes and flowers to start filling in the space a little. We started by measuring about 24 inches out from the porch and digging out that area. And by we I mean Al because Colorado’s dirt is clay. Just dried up heavy clay. I’m capable of shoveling like a cup of dirt before I’m toast. We had enough leftover flagstone from around the house to edge the entire space, which I love because it flows really nicely together with the porch.
We bought our plants at a local greenhouse and here’s what we went with:
- Globe Caragana’s (the green bushes – $40 each)
- Butterfly Blue Pincushion Flower (the tall purple/blue ones – $9 each)
- Turkish Veronica (you can’t really see them yet – $8 each)
The staff at the greenhouse was incredibly helpful. We had a lot of questions and wanted to make sure we purchased plants that would thrive in the conditions (extremely dry, direct sun, very hot). We planted and cared for them based on the instruction tag they each came with.
Once they were planted we filled in the whole space with mulch, which we got on super sale at Home Depot. Did you know, in the back of the garden section at Home Depot they discount any bags of soil or mulch that have a tear in them?! We got every bag for 50-75% off.
On the ends of the porch you can kind of see two shriveled up, very dead bushes. Our neighbor dug those up from her yard and we tried to save them but she didn’t quite dig them up properly. So they croaked. We plan to replace the space with something but we’re waiting to complete the porch reno first so they don’t get trampled during that process.
In total, for the plants, we spent about $155 and for soil and mulch, about $20. Well worth the investment in my opinion. You’ll also notice those charming rockers, which make a huge difference. I scored those on Craigslist for $75 total, brand new, still in the box! That’s a steal for wood outdoor rockers. I scoured Craigslist for months until I found some pop up. I just couldn’t stomach paying $100-150 PER chair. I pretty much live in them. We both do. We sit out there every night and it’s awesome. The lime green table is perfect with them too.
We still have a long way to go with the front of this house we call our own, but we’re getting there. We have plans to replace the overhang on the porch this summer (hopefully in the next few weeks if all goes as planned), add some color to that front door, change out those light fixtures and add more flowers and plants. I know you guys love the green plastic, cracked and leaking awning but it’s gotta go.
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