Yard Work

Here is a project we have been talking about doing for many years, and this winter we finally did it. Our front yard needed an overhaul, but it was going to be a lot of work with our meager tool supply. This is a "before" picture.
This is how it has looked since we moved in here. I bet the bushes were planted decades before and there just wasn't much in the way of design or function. The front yard was the ugliest one on the block by far. It had hedge-like bushes that blocked our view of the street from the porch so we couldn't watch the boys ride their bikes, made it difficult to see the sidewalk when we backed out, and harbored a little dust bowl in the middle - which the boys liked just fine because they used it for a jail when they played cops and robbers.
I started cutting down bushes in December. I have a bow saw, a lopper, and a camping hatchet. It took about three days to cut down all the bushes and drag them away to the trash area behind the house.

This left a bunch of ugly stumps, the cable company conduit that had just been run above ground under the bushes, and a couple of neglected gardenia bushes waiting to be transplanted. I soaked the ground for a couple days before we could start working on the stumps.

Stump digging is hard work and Chris got the biggest ones out for me. Then he buried the cable conduit and raked the ground level.

We broke one of our shovels trying to get these stumps out.

On Martin Luther King Day we cast the seeds - Marathon II for its low water requirements, year round growth (it doesn't turn brown in the winter) and its tolerance for shade - and covered it with lots of topper mulch. Then came the watering and waiting. The weather had been unseasonably warm in January which helped the seed germinate quickly. We saw tiny blades of grass within a week and a half. Then the weather cooled off about 20 degrees and rained every two or three days. That helped the baby grass so it didn't dry out and could set roots.

I transplanted the gardenias in the lower level of this flower box ( they are white flowers) in between three pink azalea bushes that should fill in when they actually get watered regularly. I transplanted two camelia trees, one pink and one white, from the side yard where they languished without water in complete shade. Without spending anything but sweat equity, we will end up with some very lovely, color-coordinated floral landscaping.

And here it is. The tender little shoots are going from one blade per seedling to two and three. We are pretty excited. The neighbors were a little baffled that we would do the work ourselves, but I just think of heavy yard work as "strength training".