I thought I would share a few more pictures of the yard. This is the front of our house. When we moved into the house (we are renting) all the windows were sealed shut with a caulk. With permission we opened up each one, and, with permission we added some color and ventilation. I painted the door blue last year, and added a screen. The screen isn't flush to the door, but when I need it I can get a very nice breeze going through the whole house. It is also helpful when the kids are waiting for the bus, keeping the pets from escaping. 
This is the border that runs along the back left hand side of the property. It had a few salvia, yarrow, 5 peonies, and siberian iris in it, but had been otherwise completely overtaken by invasives. I reluctantly had to apply several coats of round up- after several failed attempts to pull the weeds, root and all. The invasives are STILL coming back over and over, but I am no longer going to use the round up- it just killed the tops of the plants, not the roots. I'm sticking to pulling from the roots around the good plants I've placed in as they mature, because last season, even after waiting beyond the suggested time frame, I lost everything I planted here. I assume there was too much toxins left in the soil. There are deer in the woods you see behind it, so besides hostas, I have tried to plant only somewhat deer resistent plants here.
This is the back property line. The creeping charlie was growing right through the peonies. There are about 10 peonies here, mostly pink. About 10 years ago this house was owned by a life long gardener. I'm enjoying uncovering here treasures. The amur maple hedge is the neighbors. I planted some tall perennial yellow flowers (name escapes me, but they get 6 feet tall, yellow daisy like- possibly a helianthus...). I put a few shrubs at the end of this border, including a variegatred haru nishiki willow, and a yellow pointy leaf spirea.
This little bed is at the very rear of the yard, too. The previous gardener has tiger lilies here. In an empty space in front I added to red daylilies and a small hardy cactus. I also put alyssum seeds around the base of the lilies. The creeping charlie and quack grass was so high here, throughout the whole bed) I didn't know there were rocks around this bed! No joke.
I showed you a picture of this bed already. It is under the dark pink/red crabapple. This time I focused in on my quirky alligator. The young perennials around him should fill in soon. I'm quite happy with how well the succulents are filling in between the rocks. The quack grass and crepping charlie was so bad in this bed I actually had to remove every rock one by and one and rebuild the whole thing (last year). Someone two varieties of hardy geranium, siberian iris, yarrow, peonies, daylily, sedum, oenoethera, daisies, and more were living among the weeds. This was the second worst chore in the garden, but this year almost none of the bed guys are coming back, so it was worth it. Also, I used to round up at all in the tackling of this bed, and as you can tell from my plants that survived, it made a huge difference. Proves there is no supplement to hard, hard work.
This is the curved white arbor behind the garage. When I started pulling weeds here I had no idea there was a neat makeshift path made from everything from salvaged granite stone pieces, bricks, and pavers here. I was aiming to keep the existing clematis on the center trellis thrive. Now, the clematis is surrounded by hardy geranium, skirting the path on both sides, as well as phlox, lilies, malva, penstemon, mums, and more...
If you walk across the path here you end up on a bed of creeping charlie. lol. The lawn guy starts tackling that this week. There was a spirea shrub among the creeping charlie, with one gorgeous double pink hollyhock, so I etched out a bed and found various rocks on the property to line it. I extended the bed from the side of the garage. I added a forsythia shrub, but when the neighbor had his roof done the shrub was completely trampled- so now it is regrowing from the ground up. I added several iris, pinks, a henry kelsey rose, koreanspice viburnum, several mums, heuchera, daylilies, and russian sage.
Finally, this is the slat of concrete next to the bed with a tricycle pictured in my last blog post. We put the kids clubhouse here, with their picnic bench, and adirondack chairs. This arbos is framed by two william baffin roses and 4 clematis. the base is framed by two white echinacea and one salvia caradonna. I also planted lavender seeds here... perhaps the fragrance will make my wild boys relax. The idea here is that in 6-7 years the roses will be super mature and HUGE and the boys will hae outgrown playing out here so this will be a nice seating area for the growns up. See, planning ahead. 
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