Landscaping 101

Each spring we try to pick one area of the yard to improve.  To get those of you caught up that haven't been to our house yet, I'll start with 2010's improvement - the driveway.  We added pavers to the edges and bought new stone to cover the entire surface.  I've added a few before and after pictures to show you the dramatic difference with simply adding the adding concrete pavers (huge money savings over the granite or marble)!

2010 Project - Driveway

Pre Pavers

The after pictures of the driveway above are not that great because I never took any! Ops!  Just another reason why keeping this blog is a great idea so that I remember to document the projects that we do and adventures that we go on since I haven't made one of my scrapbooks in years!

This year in addition to the annual maintenance of our flower beds where we edged and mulched, we focused our energy on two problem areas... 1) the crazy rock garden that the previous owners have created under the oak tree; and 2) the back edge of our property .  I use the words rock garden loosely as I would say it was more like a weeded mess by the time we moved it.  Maybe at one time with some love it was pretty, but definitely not now!  Since we already have a ton of flower beds in the yard we decided that the best use of this space with not a lot of maintenance would be to remove the rocks, till the land, and plant grass.  It only took a few weeks of work to remove over 20 wheelbarrows filled with rocks, a hour of work with our wonder neighbors tiller (thankfully we did not have to do this by hand), and a rainy spring to grow the grass.... we got exactly the results we were looking for! Now I just need Rob to build me my swing and this spot will be absolutely perfect!  On a side note: I was in my first trimester through all this spring cleanup and had the energy to make it through... I must say I am pretty proud of myself!

Project 1: Removing the Rock Garden under the Oak Tree

Project 2: Planting Wildflowers along the back edge of the property

The wildflowers did not come out perfect this year, but we have heard it is something that is very hard to start so I am pretty impressed with the first results.  This just means that each year we will hopefully continue to get a better quality product which means fresh flowers in the house all summer long!

The before (after tilling the land)