The Garden Project.

Sorry for the lack of posting, my husband & I have been chained out in the garden.  HHAHAHAH – no I am serious.

This is what our side garden looked like when we moved in.  It’s a little hard to see, but there are flower beds and a brick path under there.

Our goal?  Make it look pretty.

I know people hate it (and BOY do I), but if you want a beautiful garden, you have to pay the love toll.  And the love toll = WEEDING.  So put on those work clothes and get out the tools, because digging up umpteen years of rooting doesn’t happen in one breezy hour.  And remember, it is crucial to be thorough.  B/c if you aren’t – it’s ALL GONNA GROW BACK.

WORK Kids Work!  They were actually quite helpful.. until they spotted the spiders.

After that I weeded solo, while John repaved the sides to give everything a nice clean edge.

In this pic you can see the weeds are mostly gone.  I’d put in a couple perennials in the fall, which thankfully survived the mild winter.  The path is paved.  So far, so GOOD!

All DONE?  Not quite.  That was just the one side.  I then got to weeding on the other side.  The spiders kept me company.

I got a wicked sunburn that weekend.  Plus two ginormous (and bleeding) bites on my neck and shoulder from I still don’t know what.  Which I watched vigilantly for days thinking they might “do something.”  Thankfully, they healed just fine.

Time to plant!

Given the amount of time & labor we’d invested, I wasn’t keen on doing this again next year.  So we chose a mix of perennials & herbs.  Plant them once and they do the work themselves, over & over again.  We filled in everything with rich organic soil, reconnected the drain spout extension and VOILA!  Good to go!

Lastly, John laid a new path (still to be sunk) from the rear garden round to the side.  (Note to John: Flip #3 before sinking..)

NEXT UP.  Front garden bed & path.

Here’s what it looked like when we started.

A couple lilacs and some lily of the valleys.  The flowers smelled nice, but they were blocking the light and obstructing the view of the house.  So after several more hours of grueling labor, digging up roots that went down seemingly forever, this is what it looked like.

John & I repaved the bed with bricks, put down more rich soil and then planted.

Here’s what it looks like now.

Pretty goal – ACHIEVED!

The best news of all?  After all that grub angst – our grass is growing back!!

Now. Must Rest.

0 thoughts on “The Garden Project.

  1. You sure are lucky those bites didn’t break open and dozens of baby spiders didn’t come running out! Like in that movie. I think.

    I’m gonna try a flip and hope I don’t sink.

    1. I have had words w the bugs, but they make no promises. As for the grass cutting, we;re letting it all grow in before we hack it down. So the flowers look good, but the lawn itself.. NOT SO MUCH/. More like super shag. Parts are even beginning to seed, they’re so tall. YAY!

  2. dear god, please just come over already. i had a guy out yesterday to give me an estimate to recut all my beds, trim the shrubs, remulch everything, add flowers, and put down some new river rocks in the side driveway.

    this homeowner stuff is for the birds. i’m never even here.

  3. Your garden looks great. It’s good you cleaned up the brick walkway. That would have been a lot of work to replace. Enjoy the fruits of your labor. 🙂

    Looking at your before and after photos makes me wish I had done that. I just took photos after, but now the weeds are coming back. Ugh!

  4. It’s been years since we girls & Mom would use forks to lift the weeds & moss from between thos bricks. Laurie worked on it whenever she came home but did little when we emptied the house. She & Bruce trimmed the evergreens around the house. The landscaper, we hired while the house was on the market, did a better job of shaping the evergreens when he trimmed.
    The front is wonderful with the scragly lilacs gone. Great job. The house is gratefull to you folks for letting it breathe. It has been AGES since so much detail could be done on the outside of the house. You, truly, have made the house yours. Thank you, Kate

    1. Hi Kate! The yew bushes all looked great. About time to start trimming again; the light green tips are starting to show. I loved the fragrance of the lilacs, but it’s going to be so much easier to repaint w/ them gone!

  5. Came to the house today on my way home from doing errands in town. Left clean coffee jar & plastic coffee container on the deck. You know me; always, recycling. The work you folks did around the house looks wonderful. The yews are Enormous. Abbie was the only one of us tall enough to trim near their tops. In fact, when the landscaper shaped them last summer, he needed to stand on a step ladder. They are getting too big around. The ones in front, on the driveway corner of the house, look like a tea pots on stumps, they are so huge. And to think they were just 2-3 feet high when Dad planted them years-s-s ago. Wandered back to the gully. Looks like more ground (on the far side) caved-in, making a peninsula held together by the tree’s roots. Did the trees on the downward-side of the peninsula just drop down a few feet when ground washed out underneath them? I noticed that some of the trees on the side behind Jane’s backyard, list as a result of the soil movement. Since shrubs aren’t a priority, you’ve done well to trim them to balance the gardens next to the foundation. I’m glad you pulled out the forsythea mess on the way to the gully. The birds & sqiurrels were scraching to find seed. Turkeys were at Jane’s, probably having passed through your backyard before I showed up. It would have been exciting to watch them. Kate

    1. Yes the yews are waaay overgrown, I have been trimming them this week, should have them done by the end of the day. WOOT! The turkeys were joined several days ago by an entire flock of (6 or 7 strong) turkey VULTURES! Craziest thing ever. I looked out the window and there they were, just moseying around. Took a bunch of pix before they flew off. Day later we found what had drawn them.. a chewed up squirrel under the pines.. Yeech.

  6. I read about a woman who had cut her tongue licking an envelope & a big blister thingy formed. The doctor lanced it & it was full of baby cockroaches. Apparently they reckon a cockroach had laid its eggs on the sticky envelope gum.
    All the hard work has paid off, it looks great. I especially like the ornamental speed limit & left turn sign on your front lawn. Shows more individuality than a garden gnome or a pink flamingo

    1. Tony, that truly is the grossest story ever.. THANKS FOR SHARING!!

      Your comment about the street sign cracked me up! That’s my husband’s personal pet peeve – one of these days, he’s gonna saw it down in the middle of the night. He HATES it!!

  7. Just saw your pictures of the front room, your library/music room. What you’ve done is beautiful. What a joy, to see that room find a life it was meant to have. Our family never gave it that opportunity. Maybe the room did live as a library/music room in a past life. Bravo, for having the gumpshun to continue the restoration. Wow. The house is fully alive now. Thank you, Kate

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