Curb Appeal

We'll continue with the outdoor theme for my second entry to Metamorphosis Monday.  Our house had been vacant and neglected for nearly a year before we bought the house and moved in.  Before signing the mountain of legal documents to make the house ours, we met with the KB Homes warranty team to make sure all repairs were done.  Chris, our realtor, and I were following the supervisor around the outside of the house, when the supervisor took a wrong step right into a huge sink hole in front of the planter.  If we only knew then, how much work this yard had cut out for us!  Here's what our pathetic yard looked like shortly before we received the keys to our new house.

Weeds and half dead plants riddled the front planter.  

We became first time homeowners during the middle of a very hot and dry summer in which we lost many a landscape battle.  Our first landscape triumph came that following spring when we installed a stone wall around the front planter.  Since then, we've planted rose trees with yellow blooms on either side of the walkway to the porch and replaced all other dead plants with Azalea and Japanese Spiraea.  The grass is finally starting to grow as well!  Oh, and the sink hole has since been filled by a KB Home landscaper!

Here's a close up of the new rose tree we planted this year.  

Unfortunately, it won't be long before these roses will be covered with Japanese Beetles.  Chris noticed a small swarm of them around these very roses a few days ago.  Ah, the joys of living in the south.  We'll continue to use the same plan of attack we took last year and stay on a steady schedule of systemic.  The beetles try feasting on the blooms only to be poisoned to death.  The only problem is, that once the beetles die, they stay on the bloom instead of falling off.

Do you live in the south and have found a better way of dealing with those pesky Japanese Beetles attacking your plants?  Please share your knowledge by leaving a comment!