We’ve been doing yardwork

So, obviously the rest of last week didn’t treat me very well.  And today I actually left work at lunch time to come home and sleep because I was that tired.  Allergies  are awful.

Anyway, I’ve mentioned to several people that we’ve been doing yardwork.  So!  Since I’m still really tired, but I wanted to put up something here for Mom to see when she checks (I love you, Mom!), I figured I’d do a picture-heavy recap of what we’ve been doing to the yard.

The back of our yard butts up to a protected marchland, so we’re not supposed to do anything to it.  But the marshland was encroaching onto our yard.  This massive thicket of vines was slowly taking over the bushes and trees at the back of the property.  Last year, we cleared a section so we could actually see through to the marsh.  This year, we figured we’d try to get even further.

This is what it looked like before we started.

We spent a couple hours one afternoon pulling and piling and wrenching those things out of the ground.  Some of them are really nasty things with stickers a good 1/2 inch long.  I completely failed on planning and wore cropped pants, so I came away from the process with scratches all over my legs.  Justin walked away with a concussion, which was when we stopped for the day.  But that’s a story for another time….  Our friendly neighbor helped us the next day to pile them all into his pick-up truck and drop them off at the dump, even though it was raining.

This is what it looked like a few days ago:

There’s still more to be done, obviously, but we’ve made some excellent progress!  We can see all the way through to the marsh!  To the coffee bin that someone dumped….

We noticed that a few of the vines climbing up the trees have died because we apparently cut them at the bottom.  So we have to go see if we can pull them down.  And there’s more to clear and rake up and clean up.  And then things like ferns will start to grow up and the trees will fill out more and it’s going to look amazing.  Much better than that awful thicket.

The other big project we did was to transform the landscaping along the side of the house.  This is what it used to look like:

And that’s the only picture I have of it.  It was pine straw mulch up to a trim of pine bark mulch that has a couple crepe myrtle trees and a couple evergreen trees that I don’t know how to explain.  It was awful.  Cats were using it as a sandbox.  Weeds were coming through.  The trees needed help.  The whole thing was a mess.

This is what it looked like a few days ago:

Justin raked out all that awful mulch.  We brought the whole thing in about 6 inches closer to the house, the empty space will fill with grass before the end of the summer, and Justin dug a trench about 6-inches deep all the way along the side of the house to define that area and filled it in with stones.  One end is right at the end of a rain gutter, so it’s going to keep the rain from washing the mulch away as badly as it used to.   It took a lot more rocks that we expected and those rocks are REALLY heavy.  Justin was very tired from moving all those rocks.  Under the rocks is a weed-blocking material that should keep weeds from growing up in that area.  Justin put in edging while I planted some flowers and bushes.  And the whole thing is filled with cypress mulch.  Oh, and the myrtles got their spring trimming, so they’re much happier.

And there’s more that we did, but I’m really tired, so I’m going to wrap it up there and come back another time.  But what do you think so far?  Amazed at our landscaping prowess?  I know I am!  This place looks awesome!  🙂