Landscaping and other house updates

Landscaping Fun

Before shots of our house, taken September 2007.

I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted anything! I guess that's what a new job and lots of house projects will do to a person. This spring and early summer the focus has been on landscaping the house. When we moved in, everything was incredibly overgrown.

I started tackling the back yard bushes once it was warm enough, way back in April. If you notice in the before picture, the bushes spread out almost to the tree next to the shed. Now, the vines still cover the back fence (I just can't kill those pesky things!), but we have gained about 8 feet of back yard space! Now we just need to finish the bushes on the corners, reseed and we'll have a great back yard.

In May we took out the first half of the front yard bushes and plants, and added flower beds under our two magnolia trees in the front yard. Inspired by the difference that made, we decided to continue on with our efforts. After our Memorial Day/anniversary trip to NYC, we returned home with a desire to continue working outside, noticing that the days were simultaneously getting longer and hotter. We bit the bullet and had a big dumpster delivered to our house for a week in early June. During that week we attacked both the front and back yards, tearing out trees, shrubs, railroad ties, and even managed to finally tear down the old shed in the back yard. Joe became my hero with that part of the project - I had absolutely no desire to tear up the floor of the half rotten building and see what was waiting below... He was wonderful in tearing the whole thing apart and sorting through the brush under the flooring to make sure I wouldn't have any creepy surprises. Which isn't to say that he didn't uncover a few himself!

We were amazed how quickly the dumpster filled up - if we had more space (and a few more days of rest in between hauling loads from the back yard to the front) we probably could have tackled even more. In the end, we were happy with how much we had accomplished.

This past weekend we continued the landscaping efforts. Sunday morning we went out and bought a bunch of plants and flowers for the front yard beds, which we had spent a few days trying the clear out. The verdict's still out on whether we were able to get rid of all of the ivy and periwinkle that choked out everything else trying to live in the beds. I finished up the planting on Monday, and besides a little bit of edging work that still needs to be done, I think we've done a great job, and gone a long way toward helping our house's curb appeal. If only we could convince our next door neighbors to do the same!

New landscaping in front of house.