We have had a lot of landscaping mishaps in our past. It has just not been one of our strengths. You can flip through the pictures of our first corner house and see that we needed some help! We’ve also made some mistakes at our current house. There was some landscaping provided for us by the builder, but we replaced everything in this section:

I wouldn’t say we did a fabulous job. The main issue is that there is nothing evergreen here, so it looks sad and bare in the winter. Also, our rose bushes have only finally started looking decent this year (their third year). One of them died last year, so there is nothing in the back corner.

Last summer, we built the deck. Thus, we needed to fill the planter box and put some landscaping around the perimeter to make the deck look more appealing from the street. We were determined to do a good job this time, and I think we did. It still looks great this summer, thankfully! Here is how we finally succeeded:

1. We knew the look we wanted (and considered the appearance year round)

Before we went shopping for plants for our flower box, we went through LOTS of pictures on pinterest and houzz. We knew what we wanted the planter box to look like and had some plants in mind when we showed up to buy them. Here were some of our inspiration photos:

We were less planned for the area in front of the deck, but we knew we wanted to include boxwoods and hydrangeas. We love the look of boxwoods, and they look great year round!

2. We bought our plants at a nursery so that we could get one-on-one help picking plants

I think this was the best thing we did. First of all, the selection is much greater than what you will find at a big box store. In addition, the plants are in great condition. But most importantly, the knowledge of the staff is unbeatable. While we went into the nursery having done some research and knowing the look we were going for, they were able to redirect us if the exact plant we wanted wasn’t available or if they thought something would work better. If you are in the Indianapolis area, we really loved our experience at Allisonville Garden!

3. We bought LOW MAINTENANCE plants that were also made for our climate and available sun (we chose full sun plants for this location). 

All of our previous landscaping fails have taught us one big lesson: we need low maintenance! We aren’t going to be great at watering, and we don’t want to replant things every year. So hardy perennials were our goal. This is the first time that we considered our hardiness zone. I didn’t even know this was a thing before we started trying to choose plants by looking at pinterest. Fine Gardening gave the rule of thumb that for containers, you should choose plants that will work in zones that are two colder than yours. If you Google “hardiness zones,” you can find maps that will show you all of the zones.

4. We tilled the soil

I think our rose bushes in the front of the house may have done better if we had tilled the soil in that bed. Our soil has a lot of clay. When we planted the bushes in front of the deck last year, we decided we better till it. It was actually really hard to do (or it looked like it was hard when I watched Parker try it 🙂 ). In fact, the tiller we rented pretty much just bounced off the hard ground. So, Parker resorted to a shovel and rake to break it up. All of the plants in front of the deck look great this year, so I think tilling was worth it.

5. We added top soil

Both tilling and adding top soil were recommended by the nursery and my cousin who is a fantastic landscaper (she learned from her dad who is a landscaping legend among friends and family). Again, there is a noticeable difference between the landcaping we tried at the front of the house and the landscaping we did at the deck last year. I assume the tilling and top soil have a lot to do with that.

Here is what everything looks like this year:

Yay for getting better at landscaping! Mistakes can be expensive, and it is no fun to do the work more than once. I hope that by sharing some of the lessons we learned, we can prevent some people from making the same mistakes we did. What other tips can you share? What are some of your favorite plants? Share in the comment section!