The joys of homeownership

This weekend I decided that it was time for us to revamp our front yard.

Recently we obtained a zero turn mower from my mom (it's awesome), and our grass has finally started to look half way decent. While we had a lawn mower before, our yard never looked that great, because I always had to mow it, and the mower had about an 18" deck. Dan refused to use it because he looked like a giant on a kids toy riding it around. Now the grass looks pretty good because Dan mows it almost every other day - any excuse to get out his new toy. The flower beds on the other hand look like total garbage.

Our yard has three huge flower beds. We have a circle driveway, and have one on each side and one in the middle. Each one has a different tree in it, on the right we have a magnolia tree and several little leafy bush plants that get red flowers on them sometimes. In the middle we have a huge oak tree with the same leafy bushy things, and on the left we have a really pretty bottle brush tree with the same leafy bush things and a random hedge. The bad thing is that we suck as homeowners, and don't keep up our yard nearly enough. The frost from this past winter just about killed everything in our yard. Those leafy bushy things looked dead until about 2 weeks ago. Now the bottoms of them are green, but there's about a foot and a half of dead bush above that.

So we went to ACE Hardware and bought 2 rakes (on sale for $5) and 20 bags of red mulch ($2 a bag), then we started on the flower bed underneath the oak tree. I was thinking we would have enough mulch for two beds... Nope. The oak tree bed took all 20 bags. We worked practically all day Saturday on this bed... it had the most leaves and plants in it.

Sunday, we decided to get the other two beds done. Back to Ace we went this time in LaBelle... 40 bags of mulch this time.. and somehow we bought plants/flowers (what?!) We got some little drought tolerant flowers (because I don't water stuff), a Confederate Jasmine (which will hopefully grow up the front of our porch), and a very pretty Gardenia.

The magnolia tree bed came first. Dan and I had gotten this one cleaned up pretty good on Thursday. We cut back the bush things and pulled out all of the dead leaves and old mulch. Then we dug out a trench around the border of the bed so the mulch wouldn't spread out into the grass. This bed was the worst one to get done, because there is no shade at all.. we had to take a lot of breaks. 15 bags of mulch later, it was done.

Last came the bottle brush bed. This one was a lot of work, because we had old weed barrier material under the bed, and it never really served its purpose, so grass and weeds were all intertwined into it.. It was a major pain to pull all of this nonsense up and out, but we did it. I found a couple of poisonous lizards, and Noah tried to kill them, but they outran him.. I also found lizard eggs, a crazy looking worm and lots of gross bugs... all of which Noah had to play with. Dan and I decided that the random hedge had to go, so he dug that out and we replanted it on the side of the house (who knows if it will last.) Dan also decided those bushy leafy things had to go, so he ripped them all out.. I dug the trench around this bed all by myself.. then we spread the mulch - all of the remaining bags -- 25.. Wow!

I took some 'before' pictures, but they were really in progress pictures, as I am too embarrassed to show anyone the real before yard (and I forgot to take pics until we were already into the project.)

Here's some pictures of our hard work...

The Bottle Brush Tree bed - In progress


Noah helping throw bags of mulch in the Magnolia Tree bed


The Magnolia Tree bed - In progress


The Bottle Brush Tree bed with just a few more flowers to plant


Noah being silly with the Magnolia Tree bed


The finished Magnolia Tree bed


Dan and Noah Finishing up & the Oak Tree bed

Saturday we also went to the Dog Days of Summer BBQ with our Sophie & Lou dog (Kiki didn't get to go because she is too ferocious) at the Dog Park. We hung out with some friends and had a nice lunch. On the way back Lou stole my sunglasses..

Silly Puppy!

She actually wore them for the whole ride home in the bus, and then while she was in the yard..