A little outdoor before and after

As I have mentioned before, the big project we new we were taking on with this house was the yard.  I thought it would be fun to go back and see how far it has come.

Here's what we bought:

A back yard full of chips and a lot of overgrown beds and shrubs.  The chips were not appealing to us and very uncomfortable to walk on with bare feet.  If you were the type who hates lawn care, there may have been some things you could do to keep that part of it, but just improve the aesthetics.  But, we aren't those people - bring on the grass!!  It's just comfortable and, well, green!  Another couple points to convince us to go with grass was that the front yard is grass, so it's not like you could go lawn mower free anyway.  The size is also very modest, so we knew that grass upkeep would be pretty low on the time consumption scale.

So Andy put in a lot of hours moving wood chips, railroad ties, rocks, and dirt.  We've always wanted to have a pond, but have put it off on account of small children and fearing accidental drowning.  And once the kids were older, we lived in an area with a climate that would have made a pond a lot of expense/ trouble.  We know that people do it in cold climates and they can be great - we just weren't ready to tackle it at the time.  But this seemed like the perfect opportunity!  We've enjoyed having goldfish and koi this summer.  They grow like crazy!  Andy told me yesterday that one of them is around 7" long!  They all started out closer to 2-3 inches.  Last winter we kept them in the house in an aquarium.  Not going to work this year!  The pond froze over last year, so we have to figure out some method of either heating the pond, or find a container big enough to overwinter them where it doesn't freeze.  Should be interesting.

 It was also the perfect time to create some new raised garden beds.  We have a pretty private back yard with lots of trees surrounding us.  This is a great thing to have when you are in a city neighborhood and like a little privacy.  However, it also means that there's a lot of shade- which isn't so ideal for growing a garden.  So the only reasonable place for the garden was closest to the house.  It faces south, so that part gets plenty of sun for the most part of the day.  In went three raised beds, stair stepped to match the grade of the slight hill we're on.  We've (mostly Andy, our plant enthusiast) really enjoyed having a flourishing garden this year.  The spring started much earlier than we're used to and things really took off.  We had a nice crop of lettuce, peas, carrots, cucumbers, and now the squash is setting on really well.

I should also explain the shade "sail".  I got it at Costco for a great price and was excited to have some shade on the right side of the deck.  But we chould quite figure out how to hang it.  The rest of the family decided this worked, and there it stayed.  I think it looks goofy, but hey, we have nice shade which I need lots of.

Directly below the edge of the deck is another area that Andy has planted more permanent food sources.  There is an espaliered (!) fruit tree (which I'm retarded enough to not remember what kind of fruit - pear? plum?)  some enormous first year rhubarb plants, and some blueberries.  Also around the perimeter of the yard, he has planted the usual variety of currents (his personal favorite) gooseberries, and other things that I should probably know, but don't.  Honestly, these things just turn into a jumble in my mind.  I just can't keep it all sorted and categorized and identified!  Flowers, I'm a little better at, so together, we have quite the wealth of plant knowledge!  Ha!  Who am I kidding?!  Andy owns a pretty solid 90% of any "shared" knowledge!!  Oh well!








But, back to grass -  it grew in very nicely and has stayed lush all summer.  We tend to like a lot of clover in our grass too, which might seem weedy to other people, but here's a few pluses for clover:  it stays green when the grass is inclined to turn brown!  and it makes for a very lush carpet underfoot, as Pumpkin can attest to.  Oh, and it attracts bees (this could be a plus or a minus, depending on your point of view) and bunnies, if you have bunnies around.

Our pond is another major attractant to bees!  I wasn't expecting this in quite the volume that it has turned out, but on these hot, hot days we've been having, the pond "shore" is packed!  Bees, and yes, wasps too.  Thankfully, the wasps have not been as bad this year as they were last year.  It's not super clear in this picture, but those little yellow spots on the sand are bees.

Two trees have come down so far.  There was an enormous, gangly mugo pine taking up a good 25% of the yard when we moved in.  It didn't last very long.  The improvement to the size of the yard was huge!  The stump has been integrated into the pond "design".  Also there was a mazard cherry along the back fence that had been hacked off in a most obnoxious way to avoid the power / phone lines.  Doesn't that just annoy you to pieces that beautiful products of nature get wacked and hacked in the most unattractive manner to make way for ugly things like power lines??  Ugh!  In most cases, I really hate power lines.  Bury them all, I say!

Oh!  and I have been forgetting about our fence building project!  We had a 60%-ish fenced in yard, which didn't bother us in the least.  Until we got a dog!  And then that project gets moved up very quickly on the list!  In the back, behind the garage was a motley crew of brush, old stair railings, and who know what else, making up the property border back there.  It was rather unsightly, but then, it was rather out of sight, so who cared, right?  Well, said dog could get through, and she thinks going into the neighbor's yard is a great time, so we put up a utilitarian 6' cedar fence back there.  That was a no brainer.  Also on the east side of the house was just a little 10' or so opening that would be easy to close off.  But the trickier one to figure out was the space between the garage and the house.  This is the entry we use every day, it's mostly concrete, and we weren't sure the best way to approach it.  It was a matter of going through a gate EVERY time we came from the driveway to the house, OR having to go down the stairs and put the dog through the gate every time we let her outside.  Inconvenient both ways.  Finally, Andy just did what seemed the easiest and built a straight 3' fence from the corner of the garage, to the corner of the house.

 And it's perfect!  The gate is not that much of a bother and the look it quite quaint!  I have a flower garden on one side of the walk and the "herb" garden is on the other.  The above picture is from June. It's turned into quite the jungle at this point, so I can see I'm  going to have to study up on how to do a better job of maintaining the herbs.  Who knew that parsley grew into a 6' tall bush?  Not this girl!  :)  This picture was taken today.

Here's a before and after of my little flower garden:  The day we moved in, this little space was mega packed with irises and a few lupines.  I saved the lupines and some of the irises.  And I gave away a ton of irises, so hopefully they are happily spread out in new locations.  (I don't know what it is, but I find I cannot throw away good living plants!  Just wait til I tell you about redoing my front flower garden...)

This one was taken today - it's getting filled in pretty well.  The allysum is much ganglier than what I'm used to...

 I think this was back in June, when everything was all nice and tidy.  Ha!

One more picture for good measure to match the before pictures at the beginning of the post:

Maybe next year the front yard will get the works...