Re-Doing the Front Garden

In the summer of 2016 we bought a house outside of Austin, TX on 5.5 acres. I was ready for land, animals and NO HOA.

We spent the first 6 months remodeling the inside of the house (check the pictures below). Now I’m ready to get started on the outside. I HATE the front of the house. It has no curb appeal. So I’m going to try and take you along on my quest to re-do the front garden.

Here’s the pictures of the before and after of the kitchen. It was an amazing transformation. We redid all the floors, took out a wall, redid the bathrooms and kitchen.

Front Garden

I had a Master Gardener come out last year and make a plan for the front gardens for me.

She gave me a list of plants she recommends and where to put them. I ended up having to spend the money on fencing for the back few acres so I put the front garden on hold. But Spring is coming and I’m ready to get to it!

Things to Do

Decide if we want to do this ourselves or hire a landscaper
Figure out how to get the bushes that are there now, out
Figure out where to get more dirt to fill in some of the areas that have exposed foundation
Remove the grass
Till the dirt there
Think again about hiring a landscaper
Put down weed fabric and steel perimeter
Find where to order all these different plants
Find where to order the river rock and topsoil
Think about installing automatic watering system
Really go back to that idea of hiring a landscaper…lol
Do I want all those plants or do I want some herbs in there too?
If I update the front garden, then I’m going to have to fix the shutters too
Build plant boxes under the windows

OK…my plan is to come back to the blog and share what I’ve found and how I go about renovating the front garden.

I’ll also be working on the main garden in the back too. I’ve already ordered seeds. I’ll update you on what I ordered when they come in.

Any tips for me?