A Hard Day's Work

Well, to be honest, this was more like 2 1/2 days work, but you get the point . . .

Before

Here is the play area of the yard before.

And now, the finished product - Eventually we would like to get a swingset, but for now this will do just fine. We drove in some landscape timbers, laid some weed barrier and mulched a large part of the backyard to make an area for the kids to play. The Girl definitely enjoys it. As an added bonus we will no longer have to move that stuff out of the way when its time to mow!

We also put in a small garden in the opposite corner of the yard. Generally I don't plant anything before Mother's Day but I broke with tradition this year. It's all perennials though.

Here is the front of the house before. The comparison won't be quite right though, since this photo was taken during the summer when the trees and bushes were in bloom. I'm still trying to decide whether I should let the spirea bushes look like a hedge or trim them back to individual bushes like they're supposed to be.  Any thoughts?

The front of the house got some upgrades as well. We planted an evergreen on either side of the garage door. When they get taller they'll look quite nice I think.

I'd been wanting to put in some hanging baskets ever since we moved in. I planted yellow pansies, since I know it won't get too cold for them. I also put in some narcissus and tulips along the walkway. 

The Chef loves to find rocks, so he's working on lining the front with them. He's still working on digging it out a few more inches so I can plant something between the bushes and rocks.

Originally, the grass went all the way up to the trunk of this tree. We dug it out and added mulch and a few plants. I got up on the giant ladder and trimmed the tree last week too. It was about two feet taller and oddly shaped. Also, it had branches almost all the way down to the ground. Apparently the previous owners weren't much for yard work.



We also have a dogwood that will go in on that segment of fence there next to the porch, but we didn't quite get to that yesterday. The Chef is off tomorrow so I'm hoping we can get out there and finish planting it.

All in all it was a very busy weekend around here. This morning was spent sweeping and vacuuming since there were little bits of dirt all over the house. I tried in vain to ignore the little dirt bits. When The Boy ate his second bite of dirt I figured I had better clean up! I also attempted to get my sneakers clean - after about a half hour I figured that was as clean as they were going to get. I'm glad the ground was wet because it made digging easier, but boy did it do a number on our shoes!