Hi! We've got a nice bed in the front yard, decent sized, wedge shaped kind of (well, if you've got a pie and you cut out a little more than 1/4 of it, thats the shape. it's at a corner) and it's overgrown with roses and spirea right now. We're going to rip just about everything out of it except for the lovely peonies :)

I'm trying to plan out something for the spring and summer. We just some gorgeous bearded iris rhizomes online that should be shipping in August I believe, and 2 are black, 2 are light pink. We are thinking this would look really nice paired with the light pink peonies, in the spring. Also just ordered about 40 or 50 pink daffodils to put in there, which should take up some space as well. But, this will not fill enough of the space in the bed. Right now, the peonies are along the corner part of the wedge shape, so I'm thinking I might put one black iris on each "end" of the peony line, and then one pink one on the sides of the black ones. But what about the rest of the space? I want to put something really tall in the middle, but I can't really think of anything much taller than that for a spring flower. The other option is to move the peonies and iris to a different part of the bed.

I will try and "draw" out the layout..

different bed : front stoop :

_______________

____walkway____________________________

: : )

: driveway : BED

:

:

: ___________

anyway, between the bottom solid line of the bed and the parenthese is a curve. (making the wedge shape)

We could move the peonies to the corner near the parenthasee but for next summer, we'd like to put some hollyhocks and sunflowers in the middle (we have a large light post in the middle, and we're thinking of putting hollyhocks and sunflower around this because they are so large and tall.)

I am not sure if sunflower and hollyhock are deer resistant, but regardless, we plan on having everything *around* them be deer/bunny resistant. (which should protect them) I know that deer will not eat any iris. I also know that they will not eat any digitalis like fox glove, and they wont eat poppy, lupine, or zinnias. But what else?

I would like to have something small and low-to-the-ground as a border plant in the summer. If zinnias didn't grow so tall, they'd be perfect. I am thinking maybe of cosmos? Are they deer/bunny resistant? Also, I don't really know much about lupine: are they spring plants or summer ? or both? Are they self-seeding? What about the cosmos?

I would love any ideas for what to put in here for the spring and summer. For the spring, I would love to keep in the pink hues, and any blacks you can think of (i'd put in some black tulips, but I don't know if they'll be eaten--too expensive to risk). For summer, I would like to have lots of vibrant color (especially blues and purples, which is something I really like about lupine)

Also, does anyone know if snapdragons are bunny/deer resistant? We have some nice ones in the backyard, but our backyard is bunny and deer proof in general. Fenced in and the underground of the fence has chicken wire and mesh wire so nothing can dig under the fence to get in. But our front yard is open to any creatures. They've devoured my poor hydrangea which will need to be moved to the back yard, it looks like.

Sorry this is so long !!!