Landscaping

Okay, I know that some of you might have given up on me ever doing any type of landscaping. I keep saying I am and I really believe it when I say it... but then life keeps taking all my time and/or money and, long story short, I've been in the house over a year and just today got around to doing anything in the yard.

I am so proud of how it turned out!! The kids and I all worked so hard on it. Levi was my hole digger, Paige spread some mulch, made sandwiches, and kept the sprinkler company.

Here's the breakdown:

I'm not sure why but I accidentally bought a 20' x 20' tree (well, two to be honest, but I'm returning one) and didn't really have anything to do with it so I put it in the middle of the old pond. Kent was supposed to bring me dirt quite a little while ago and still hasn't, but I can't really complain, he was doing it for free. On the other hand, I really do need the dirt to fill the pond, so I now have a tree planted in a half full pond. Oh, well, no one who knows me expects me to be totally together, right?! My plan was to have the pond filled with annuals each year so now they can just go around the tree and it will be really nice. Right now there are just a few ground cover-ish plants (it's a horticultural term) surrounding it. So that's the pond part.

When I moved in there were some steps dug into the side of the hill to go from the driveway to the top of the yard but only one block was still in place and the holes were fading. So today I took some blocks from the pond and re-dug the steps and replaced them. I would like to change the blocks around the pond to something a little more natural anyway so I'm not worried that three are missing.

Now for the main part, I put flowering plants ranging from mature size 6" to 5' in a pretty much semi-circle around the pond and along the sidewalk. They start small on each end and get larger and bushier toward the sidewalk and then a little smaller right as you turn to go up the steps. Eventually I think I will remove those two giant bushes but that's a while away so for now the flowers will just be in front of them. I also put five huge bags of mulch around everything, which is really the part that makes it look finished. Just mulching would have been an improvement and I think I might just do that in the back yard for this year and worry about planting next year.

Did I mention how proud I am and how great it looks!!

Oh yeah, I should mention that I did this instead of mowing and so the rest of the yard looks like crap. :-)