Rose Family: Memorial Day Yard Project

With Eric being gone all but the weekends we had a hard time finding the time to rota-til a garden and do the landscaping we'd been wanting to do. But then Memorial Day came to the rescue. Eric got a 3 day weekend so we made plans to make the most of it. We informed family that we wouldn't be planning on doing much else besides working in the yard. Well they all rose to the occasion and before we knew it we had a troupe of people helping us in the yard. There's no way we could have gotten done what we did without them.

First we rented a sod cutter and cut out a section of grass for a garden plot. This turned out to be no mean feat, and a beast of a machine to handle. But we managed to get the plot and large sections of grass cut out around the house for some landscaping. We didn't plan on doing quite so much landscaping right away, but when we realized what a pain the machine was, we decided we might as well get it done.

The for a large portion of the day, my parents, Eric's parents and siblings helped us by watching Emmeline, rota-tiling the garden over and over again, prepping the soil for planting and planting flowers and shrubs around the house.

Emmeline was played and entertained with so I got to go out and help. I got so into working that hours would pass and all of a sudden I would think, "oh my goodness, I've forgotten all about Emmeline, I hope she's okay." And I would go inside and find her cooing at Annie and Andrew (Eric's siblings). It was so nice to be able to let loose a little and take care of things besides Emmeline.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to take pictures before, during or after, so here are some pictures of what it looks like 2 months later. I've added more plants since then, planted the vegetable garden and Annie helped put in the mulch when she came to visit.

I love the transformation. Our yard went from super drab to pretty fab almost over night. Though we still have many plans for the yard still in the works (a deck, sprinkler system, trees, fire pit, and lots more flowers) I'm pretty happy and impressed with ourselves.

This is the only pictures of the backyard I have from before. But it was all like that, solid grass and nothing else.

A picture from last summer, before we bought the house. The one lasting thing the previous owners did was plant tiger lilies under the window. I'm so glad they did, they add a nice pop of color.

We haven't really changed anything here, just planted our own annuals and planter. But next year I plan to plant some clematis, and take out some of the pavers and plant shrubs and roses next to the house.

If you look to the right you can see the evergreen that we planted. We continued the flower bed around the corner.

Finally, this yard desperately needed more trees. So does the neighborhood. People, please plant more trees in your yards!

Pretty, pretty.

We planted the evergreen, some perennials and a shrub here. We also added edging and mulch. It's amazing what a little mulch and edging will do.

To the right of the picture above. Here is our little lilac bush and some dianthus.

Full shot of the backyard. It looks so much better with some landscaping. Before it was quite shabby looking with the grass hitting the foundation. Everything is still pretty small, but I can't wait to see what everything looks like in a few years.