Sprucing Up The Yard

Our yard is nicely landscaped, but a few areas need some sprucing up. Plants have outgrown their space, and in many areas weeds have started to creep in (or take over!) Two weekends ago I got the brilliant idea at about noon on Saturday to redo the back landscaping off the patio. And by 5pm on Sunday we had made it happen. I'm very pleased. I took out some ground cover that wasn't really covering much, some lilies that were too close to the house, some random half dead stuff that I couldn't really identify. There was a beautiful huge hosta that I wanted to save and transplanted it to the other side of the yard. So far it's still alive..yeah!!

Unfortunately I didn't take any before photos. But here is the "after". We decided to go with the "buy small, they'll grown in" plan because bushes can get quite pricey. We got a few boxwoods in the back, some blue flowering perennials for in front of the big rock, and a "fro bush" as we like to call it, for the front corner. Walter put in some edging and we spread rock and some new stepping stones too. I'm thrilled with the outcome and can't wait to watch it all fill in over the next few years.

Speaking of that big rock...how neat is that! Apparently when the house across the street was built this rock was found in the process of digging for the foundation. The previous owners convinced the crew to bring it over here for decoration. It will be a great rock for X to climb on and it even has a hole in the side where he can hide a toy or two.

My next endeavor is cleaning up the side yard landscaping. You really can't see this area much so I don't want to spend a lot of $$ on it, but it's a mess. Here's the before and me pulling out ground cover.

You see that green thing to the right of my head? It's a weed that's actually turned into a weird plant! Talk about a fast grower. My plan is to save the bushes that are there but give them a severely needed haircut. Then I want to transplant a few bushes from the front landscaping (that is up next for renovation) to fill in the gaps. Maybe a little mulch and we'll call it a day. Not sure when I'll have this side finished. I started it last week, then got sick, and now it's hot here again (heat and pregnancy don't exactly mix well!) And I pretty much have to work on it when X is sleeping or with Walter because he likes to take off to other parts of the yard where I can't see him. So hopefully I'll be back soon with pictures of the finished product!