Mulching: Before and After

 I've been waiting over a year to be able to

share before and after photos of the yard.

Finally, I have a mostly finished product!

This is the view from our back door looking down to the back of the property.

And this is the same view now.

 And another view closer to the garage.

 This is of course the view from the beck of the property

looking back towards the house.

 And the same view now.

 Close up of the old lilac bush that was outside the back door.

It was rotted and not in great shape.

And now it's gone.

The large area in the photo that doesn't have plants

is the future site of the water garden I plan to put in.

There will be a waterfall in the back right corner of the house.

I'm hoping to be able to do that late summer/early fall

if I'm lucky.

Another wider view of the area.

This is a shot of the side of the house

and the lovely yews.

Another yew full frontal.

And here we are yew free.

This was a really big transformation.

We went from the yews to yew stumps 

to nasty grass and weeds 

to this.

A photo of the area on the side towards the back.

The room with all the windows is the laundry/mud room.

And here is the little garden now.

There was a garden there originally,

but it was full of weeds and mint.

Mint is the devil.

DO NOT plant mint directly into your garden!

Trust me.

Another view of the yews from the front of the house.

And the new view.

I'm thinking of planting a climbing vine on the rain spout.

A clematis would look good there,

and it would give the garden some height.

We don't have a front yard at all- the porch touches the sidewalk,

so I need to make sure the areas I have close by really pop.

Here we have some random shots of the new gardens.

We will eventually replace the old nasty wire fence

with a privacy fence.

The rest of the yard will be picket fencing.

I originally stuck my grandson's playhouse in the garden

to take up space.

I've decided to leave it there for now.

I had the idea to use containers 

and let him plant some annuals to have around his house.

The garden angel that was once my grandmother's.

Now that everything has been weeded and mulched, 

and all the plants have been planted,

it's time to make a list of what plants I'd like to add.

I have another hydrangea that was part of my wedding decor to transplant, 

and I'd like to get a lace cap hydrangea too.

Big E wants a rhododendron,

and I've saved room along the side of the house for that.

I need some more milkweed,

and I also want

rudbeckia (brown eyed Susan),  lavendar,

phlox, columbine, hollyhocks, and some coreopsis-

plus whatever else I happen across that I like. 

Garden Angel

It's been a busy weekend around here.

It's been raining for weeks, 

and we finally had some sun so I had to kick outside gardening chores into high gear.

We have our first cook out at the house this Sunday, 

and I still have a pretty long To-Do list I'm trying to complete.

Most important on the list is to finish digging out the new garden beds.

Once that it done, everything will look neater.

So I got up early (before 7am) on Saturday

and worked until noon when the rains came in.

Yesterday, I got up and started working at 8am.

At noon Big E came home and started helping.

I'm happy to say that most of the garden beds are defined except for one small area

that I will complete once I get home today.

I went to my parents' house to pick up some of my outdoor stuff

like the patio table, kids playhouse and lawn ornaments.

My favorite is the one pictured above, 

a garden angel.

It was once my grandmother's-

a gift for Mother's Day.

There's a story too.

My mom asked my thoughts on a possible gift for my grandmother for Mother's Day on year.

I suggested going to Frank's Nursery & Crafts and getting her a lawn ornament.

My grandmother and I went to Frank's all the time, it was our thing,

and she liked several of the lawn decorations they had.

So we all went to Frank's and my mom told my grandmother to pick out what she wanted.

She loved this angel, it was one she pointed out to me on several of our trips.

Of course, we never looked at the price and when my mom went to pay, 

it ended up being somewhere around $100.

It was always something we joked about afterwards.

So I picked up the angel

and planned on setting it in the area by the house where the hydrangeas will be going.

But a voice told me to put it amongst the peonies

(It wasn't a voice from the heavens I heard, just a small one in my head, I'm not that crazy).

So when I got home, I set her with the peonies

and it looked like that was where she was meant to be. 

Right now, it's my favorite area of the garden.