Front Entrance
Until Ken became comfortable with the idea that ripping out sod and replacing it with plants would be an improvement, he left the front yard untouched. The reality was that our sons were playing basketball in the driveway constantly and would have trampled all plant life.
Two of the boys had departed for college by 2000, so the basketball abuse was reduced substantially. Ken created a new front garden island bordered with pachysandra filled with cannas, hostas, daylilies, and begonias.
In 2009 we added a front porch, designed by architect John W. Thompson and built by Schorr Construction. We had experienced a front-porch swing when our boys were little in our former home in Minnesota, so we installed another swing on this porch so that I could look forward to swinging with our grandchildren.
The new sidewalk to the porch was more elevated than before, so Ken laid a flagstone stairs from the sidewalk to the lawn. He remembered fondly from his boyhood a vine-covered porch at his grandparents’ home, so we replicated that idea on the sunny side of this porch. Enjoying the shade and privacy, Jean reads beneath the tiny white blossoms of the Clematis 'Sweet Autumn'.
The sunny area between the porch and the driveway became a garden of perennials including the delphiniums shown. Two of our grandkids decided that brooms were fun and got busy sweeping the flagstones and lawn.