There is a massive road construction project going on at my work, The Columbian. One Wednesday, we on the desk were going about our business when one of the ladies in Advertising strolled by and mentioned that the landscaping in the west parking lot was being ripped out the following morning and all of the plants were up for grabs. Several of the desk members have thumbs as green as mine and we jumped at the chance. So during our dinner break, Bob, Romana and I went out to loot. Romana had a shovel in her car (that is a true gardener!) and I was thankful I had a pair of gloves in mine. My bounty was pretty awesome — several little variegated shrubs, 6 giant clumps of tall aster things (thought they were shasta daisies), a little tree and a ton of periwinkle. Loaded my share into the back of my truck and went back to work, sweaty but satisfied.

So now that I had all of this free booty, I needed to figure out where to put it. I knew I didn’t want shrubs in the new front yard bed and I didn’t really have a game plan worked out for the back. However, the front side area was screaming for something low maintenance but cute. The two draggly roses needed some friends.

2 leggy rose bushes and current home to the mulch removed from the front porch. yuck.

Another blank canvass to play with. So my next day off, a few hours of work transformed it.

Dug out a little bed. Plunked in the bushes, some davidii and asters, spread some of the mulch.

Looks much better. Sorry I about the poor photography and shadows. But you get the gist.