An Outdoor Update

I feel slightly guilty over not getting everything done that I mentioned in this post over the summer. I was really hoping that we'd get at least the front yard squared away, but summer happens and I decided that the beach was way more fun than yanking overgrown shrubs out of our garden beds.

In the last few weeks, we decided to play catch-up on all the work we've been procrastinating. Some of it was hired out and some not, but slowly but surely we're getting to where we want to be! Rome wasn't built in a day, after all. I need to remind myself that it's the steps that get us to the final result, and they don't all happen overnight.

So let's get started on some updates! 

You might remember in this post I shared a scary photo of our backyard looking like this:

After the trees were cleared. Terrifying.

I guess if you count the presence of crab grass covering up the dirt, it's looking a little (?) better:

Still makes me stabby. At least it's a little more green if you count the weeds.

We had two more zones added to our irrigation system recently, so once we have some REAL grass (and not atrocious weeds) it won't dry up in a day.

 

The exterior of our house was in need of a little love (no before photos, but one side of our house was slowly turning green), so we had it powerwashed. I tried to convince Denny that we could do this one ourselves, but I guess his idea of a good time is not on a ladder or scaffold with water blowing everywhere.

A view of the powerwashing from my front door.

We also decided that it was time to deal with the super invasive shrubs/monster plants in our front garden beds. While we appreciated the greenery, we weren't too fond of the fact that our bushes were spreading like crazy and were impossible to keep tidy-looking. They had to go, so we wrapped a super heavy duty chain around the trunk, hooked the other end of the chain to Denny's truck, and yanked those suckers out (PS: I don't actually condone doing this. A lot could have gone wrong, but I have a husband who flexes his truck muscles every once in a while and I was careful to get away from the area in case the chain went flying. Cutting down the shrubs at the ground or digging up the roots is really the safest way to go).

Don't worry, friends, we transplanted them to the wooded area behind our house. I figure they'll enjoy the space to spread and take over the world from back there.

It took a lot of yanking, digging, hacking, and pulling. We lost one shovel to the crazy root system of these bushes, evidenced below:

Now that front flower bed is looking pretty sparse, I transplanted an astro over there, as well as some mums I picked up at Home Depot for $0.88 each. Check out the cuuuuuute dead mums on the left. Oh yeah, and we picked up a tiny decorative grass plant (check out all the way to the right of the bed), which I'm sure will be giant eventually and we'll have to move it somewhere else.

It would look much better with a few more plants, some rhyme and reason to the layout and some mulch, but I'm glad to be starting with a blank slate for the Spring.

We'd still like to do a lot more, although it's looking like some of it will have to wait until Spring:

• Fence in the backyard.
• GET SOME SOD, ALREADY.
• Build a fire pit (most likely on the concrete slab that's just chilling in the middle of our yard)
• Stain our patio.
• Expand the front garden bed and build a garden wall to give it some definition (we tore out the plastic garden wall the weekend we moved into the house and forgot to replace it--the grass is quickly encroaching!).

And that's what we've been up to the last couple weeks with regard to the exterior of our home. Anyone taking advantage of the cooler temps to get a little yardwork done?

Wanna see where I party? Click here for a list of link parties I participate in.