The House of Marx: A new garden

I have a garden bed in my front yard that I've been brainstorming for a very long time on what to plant in it. For some reason in Georgia there's a weird interest in monkey grass. Do yall know what that is? If not, google it. To me it's just ugly. So I've been slowly but surely ridding my yard of it. Here is what the garden bed looked like before:

I have these bushes that were already planted when we moved in. And at a glance, they look really great! But whoever planted them I think was confused and thought the bushes on the right and left were the same. The tall pencil bushes are the same, but the smaller shrubs are different on each side. It's been driving me a little crazy! I wanted to plant something else there, but did not want to just toss perfectly good bushes. They are still pretty, just not matching :)

Soooo Lightbulb!! I decided to re-plant these bushes to the front garden bed providing depth and levels to a flat and boring part of my yard! So here it is!

The only plant I purchased for this bed was the confederate jasmin that will grow on the trellis that used to be behind my rose bush in the back yard.

I think it looks awesome! Even better than I pictured in my head. And while I was working on it, my neighbor just a couple houses down walked over and offered to help! She loves working in her yard so I was more than happy to let her lend me a hand! It went so much faster with her assistance.

That green spidery looking plant closest to the driveway is an iris, and I moved my lily bulbs on either side of it. They were already starting to sprout! I hope they survive the move.

Look at those little cuties!

I think it works really well with that rock pile too. I never liked it, but the rocks were too heavy to just toss. Now I think it looks beautiful. And when the confederate jasmin grows I'll guide it around the trellis and over the rocks. They bloom white flowers that smell amazing.

So now I have the garden beds in front of the house to plant. I wanted flowering bushes. I'm not a fan of buying new plants each year so I wanted evergreens but need color! Flowers! So I chose encore azaleas. We have azaleas in our back yard but I cant remember if they bloom more than once a year though... need to pay more attention to that ;) But encore azaleas bloom spring, summer and fall. And attract butterflies. I was holding an azalea flower at the nursery today and a yellow butterfly landed right on it. It was so sweet.

I chose the autumn monarch azalea. It has beautiful coral pink flowers. I could not get enough to plant both sides so I started with the short side. I pray they have the autumn monarch when the budget allows for it!