The YARD.

Although we have a laundry list (see it here) of things we'd like to change about our house, we decided it was probably best to start with the outside first.  Because we allllll know that outside appearances are most important in everything, right?!  As long as you look cool, calm, clean and collected -- then no one can really know the disaster happening inside.



(Before)

We had first tackled the flower beds two years ago, and discovered just how horrible the builder was in our neighborhood.  First of all, they decided it would be a good idea to build a neighborhood on an old rock quarry.  Yes.  A rock quarry.  So you can't dig two inches down into the soil without hitting rocks - lots and lots and lots of rocks - in all shapes, sizes and types. 

We also found a variety of fun things the builder decided to use as filler in the flower beds.  A broken hammer.  A caulking tube.  Lots and lots of screws and metal scraps.  A beer bottle, two soda cans and several feet of orange plastic construction fencing.  We filled three truck beds full of debris and hauled it away to the dump before we could even THINK about planting.  So naively we figured this time around we'd only need to do a little transplanting and mulching and call it a weekend.

Haha.  Oh, this blog is going to be fun!

We were fortunate in that it had rained several times last week, so the ground was nice and moist on Saturday morning.  This allowed for easy removal of the straggly bushes and relatively easy digging for the new flowers and plants.  Relatively.  We still ended up with three wheelbarrows full of rocks and a truck bed full of excess grass and soil, however.  We were so tired by the end of the day on Saturday that we decided to wait and do the mulching and planting on Sunday.

(During)

The red bud tree we purchased in 2009 was still in great shape.  The mop cypress beneath it had struggled a bit, and we had to replace two of them last summer, which still failed to thrive.  We really liked the color combination of the tree and the mop cypress, so we decided to make due with the ones that lived but spaced them differently in hopes that they'd stick around.  Fingers crossed. 

We pulled out two small bushes that we had saved from the first go around, hoping that with lots of pruning and coaxing, they'd eventually fill out.  They had their chance but failed to produce, so it was time to go.  We selected two barberry bushes in royal burgandy, and one in golden dwarf to replace them, which I think really ties in the colors of the mop cypress.  These are a lot heartier than some other evergreen bushes, and I think they look kinda spunky with their thorny branches. 

For the front of the beds along the sidewalk, we decided to go with four FLower Carpet Red Ground Cover roses.  Rationale?  To keep dogs from pooping in the beds.  It's a pretty bad problem in our ghetto-fabulous neighborhood, so hopefully one thorn to the hiney and dogs will be looking to use the restroom elsewhere.

Ultimately our plan is to fence in the back and side of the yard, but we're still awaiting our HOA design approval before we can do that.  The beds that currently run along the side of the house are chock full of bulbs that seem to proliferate like rabbits.  We've pulled at least 300 bulbs out of the beds over the course of the last three seasons, and they still pop up at the first sign of warmth.  So rather than tilling everything up again, we decided to go the nuclear route and smother them to death with black garden tarp.  If they work their way through this stuff, then they win.  If we were the betting type, we'd put our money on the bulbs.

Since we're unsure as to whether or not the fence is a go, we decided to hold off on planting anything along the side of the house.  We wanted to make everything look decent in the interim, which is why we decided to go ahead and mulch the beds.  We'll figure out the long term plans later.

And the beautiful blue flowers along the front walk are creeping phlox we purchased two years ago and love love LOVE.  We are contemplating putting a whole bunch of them between our driveway and the next door neighbors, although I'm not so sure about the pricetag on that, considering they're about $16 a pop.

We used one and a half yards of shredded oak mulch, which was still more than we needed. 

(After)

Up next for the yard:  grass seed 101.

Total cost:  $344.90

Total time:  15 hours

Final assessment:  We still hate our house.  But a little less from the outside.