Gardening successes and not

After spending two afternoons this weekend cleaning up our front gardens, I thought I'd show you how they're coming along. The cool wet spring is making everything very happy right now, and our plants and lawn look very happy.

The garden bed under the window is looking full:

In fact, I have to thin the irises and black-eyed Susans this fall (I planned to do it this spring and only just read that all splitting and thinning is supposed to happen in the fall - have to remember to do this come October):

Strawberries also seem to have taken over our garden. They started out in the red planter and escaped last summer. We transplanted some to the beige planter but the ones on the ground made a come-back this year as well (we were pretty sure they were dead). Our next invasive plant perhaps? I'd be glad if we actually got to eat the strawberries, but the squirrels and birds always get to them first.

The other side is doing well too, but isn't nearly as full. When I do split the irises, I plan to put a lot of them over here. I also want to split the hostas from the right garden and move them here. The ones on the right are short and variegated and come up earlier in the year. The ones on this side are solid green and higher and come up later. They're nice but I think I want to move them somewhere else so that both gardens match. Again, something to remember for the fall.

Our biggest work today was on the two front gardens. I weeded them yesterday and there were just so many weeds at the edge of the sidewalk that I decided I need to buy more hearty plants to crowd them out.

Can you see the difference between the two pictures? More creeping phlox, this time in "Emerald Blue":

Our pink phlox never took off as well as the Georgia Blue, and it's been 3 years so we tried the purple variety. Mostly because we see it more often, so thought that maybe it is heartier. Here is a picture of a neighbor's phlox, only 3 years after she planted it:

So yeah, obviously a lot of room for improvement.

We also added a strange, tiny ground-cover-style mint variety, "Corsican" behind the thyme (can you see the two clumps back there? We couldn't resist buying it and thought it might fill in behind the thyme (which, incidentally, I have to really trim down in the fall because, yet again, I learned spring is not the time to do that - it's really dead and twiggy right now below the healthy parts):

We also added some phlox closer to the light post, and some "Homestead Purple" verbena. We tried verbena before and I'm pretty sure it got eaten by squirrels or deer, but I love the color so we're trying again. 

I also threw a couple phlox plants on this side as well:

I know in all these cases, the before and after pictures aren't particularly dramatic, but it still took about an hour of planting. Now we need to remulch - at least these front sections - so that it too will help keep the weeds at bay.