A Work in Progress...

If it ever stops raining long enough to dry out we may actually make some serious progress on our front yard project. At least we've gotten started.

In the front corner by our mailbox we had several rose bushes. I took out the biggest one and made room for some iris and lilies.






We also got brave and cut out much of our lawn. We rented a sod cutter which helped, but the rolling, lifting and hauling away the strips of cut sod was a lot more work than we had anticipated, particularly since the ground was still wet so the pieces we had to move were REALLY heavy. However, I'm pretty happy with how the "bikini lawn" came out.




I took out one of the boxwoods under the bedroom window and planted a forsythia in its place. Eventually the other two boxwoods will go as well, probably to be replaced by burning bush, but for now it's just nice having that spot of color in the middle.




The main project so far has been reworking the irrigation and putting in the flowerbed around the light pole. First of course came LOTS of discussion of what we wanted to put there, how to border it, what shape and size, etc, with lots of mind changing along the way. We started out with this:



After cutting out the grass, digging out LOTS of rock, roto-tilling the irrigation lines, um, yeah...and a few other adventures we are getting there.




Next will come the raised beds for our veggies. We sort of have a plan...



but exactly how it will turn out when it's really done remains to be seen. We debated whether we wanted to put rock or bark around the boxes where we have taken the grass out. However, we dug so many blasted roots out of the ground from where the big trees were we cut down (3 huge pines and one locust) that after we put them through the shredder/chipper we now have two big garbage cans full of shredded roots. I'm tempted to just put that down instead of buying bark. Am I nuts? DON'T ANSWER THAT!

After we get the raised bed in we will decide where to place the two new trees we got




and then we will put in our water feature...

There is still A LOT of work to be done. But we are getting there. My hands are chapped and my back is sore. The laundry is piling up. This project has really taken over nearly all of our time. However, it should look nice when we get it all done. Let's hope so anyway!